
Class L: 

Book 

Copyiiglitl^". 



ii 



Ci)EffiIGHT DEPOSm 



A DEVOTIONAL COMMENTARY 



ON THE 



GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN 



McVeigh harrison, o.h.c. 



ARRANGED FOR DAILY MEDITATIONS, 

OR SPIRITUAL READINGS, 

FROM ADVENT SUNDAY TO THE 

END OF WHITSUNTIDE 



PUBLISHED AT THE 

ST. ANDREW'S BOOK SHOP 

ST. ANDREW'S P. O. 

TENNESSEE 



.0 



^% 



^'r-jS 



Copyright 1919 

By McVeigh Harrison, O.H.C. 

West Park, New York. 



M 29 ^920 



©CI.A56ie70 



AO^O I 



c 

CI 



DEDICATED TO 

MRS. JOHN H. GARTH 

A DEAR AND FAITHFUL FRIEND BOTH 

OF THE WRITER AND OF 

ST. ANDREW'S 

SINCE OUR RESPECTIVE BEGINNINGS 

IN THE WORLD 




PREFACE 



THIS small volume might have been called 
**The Divine Charity/' for the love of Jesus 
Christ for us is its subject throughout. One who 
follows St John at all, I find, cannot choose but 
adopt this theme, for it recurs in some form or appli- 
cation not only in every chapter of his Gospel, but 
in many individual words and phrases, the selection 
of which must have been the care of his long lifetime. 
The title I have actually chosen is simply the most 
accurate I could think of. For the past two years 
I have been trying to follow out the main hnes of 
our Blessed Saviour's Life and teaching as the 
Apostle of Love has revealed them to us, and then 
to use these for my own meditations and for con- 
ferences and retreats. I wish it were true to say 
that I have been living in the atmosphere of the 
Fourth Gospel, which is really only the true atmos- 
phere of the ReHgious Life, and which would be the 
best preparation for writing these pages. But in 
spite of the many imperfections of my study, it has 
disclosed so much that was wonderfully helpful in the 
Sacred Text, that I determined to draft the material 
in my note-books into the form of brief, expository 
meditations or readings. For my experience with 
people who are practising regular mental prayer has 



PREFA CE 



indicated that it would be helpful for them if they 
Could take for the ** matter'* of their meditations a 
particular Gospel and follow it through. Few, how- 
ever, can spare time to work out the exegesis of a 
passage daily, or even to read a chapter explaining 
it, and to these busy folk my humble offering is made. 
It is a ^'commentary " on the Gospel of St John, 
only in the sense that it presents in substance the 
interpretation, by great scholars, ancient and modern, 
of the Beloved Disciple's revelation of our Lord. Many 
particular verses are not noticed, but, on the other 
hand, no difficult text is left without the explana- 
tion which has satisfied me. 

My obligations are manifold; but apart from my 
great debt to the Fathers, I owe most to Bishop 
Westcott and Dr. Plummer for their Commentaries. 
To Rev. Dr. G. H. Morrison I am grateful for some 
very suggestive sermons on texts from the writings of 
St. John. 

McVeigh Harrison, O. H. C 



St Andrcw*spay,^i9i9. 



CONTENTS 

St. JohM i : 1-14 I 

St. John i : 15-36 13 

St. John i : 37-44 25 

St. John i : 45-51 34 

St. John ii : i-i i 45 

St. John ii : 12-25 57 

St. John iii : 1-15 ^ 

St. John iii : 16-36 75 

St. John iv : 1-42 83 

St. John iv : 43-v : 20 92 

St. John T : 2 1-47 loi 

St. John yi : 1-23 106 

St. John ri : 24-7 1 no 

St. John vii 1 19 

St. John viii 127 

St. John ix 136 

St. John X 144 

St. John xi : 1-52 155 

St. John xi : 53-xii 162 

St. John xiii 172 

St. John xiv 181 

St. John XT 191 

St. John xyi » 202 

St. John xviii 215 

St. John XX 234 

St. John xxi 251 



ABBREVIATIONS USED 

A. V.=Authorized (King James') Version. 

A. V. Marg.=" Marginal Readings edition of the Authorized 

Version. 
R. V.= Revised Version, Oxford edition. 
R. V. Marg.=marginal reading of the Revised Version. 
f.=the next verse in^^addition to the one cited. 
ff.= the next two verses in addition to the one cited. 
Single quotation marks (* ') indicate a literal translation, unleM 

explained in the text as inclosing a parapharse. 
All citations are inclusive of the last verse cited. 




SAINT JOHN 

4 

%^t JFirjst Witek in ^llibent Read St. John i : 1-14 

(BoH'is Hobe JStoopjs to t|)e Jmarnation 

The Beloved Disciple has for the supreme motive 
of his Gospel to tell us how Jesus Christ revealed His 
Deity. Only second to this is his purpose to teach us 
God's love for us and to win our full response. 
Therefore, in his Prologue, he sets forth the infinite 
Charity which brought God to take upon Him His 
creatures' nature. ''In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'' 
And then, ''the Word was made Flesh." Even in the 
very beginning when the universe was made by the 
Word of God, He was, from all eternity (Gen. i: 3, 6, 
9, etc.). Yet He accepted birth of a woman. He 
united to Himself a Manhood which was subject to the 
limitations of time and space, which could grow weary, 
and suffer and die. How infinite, how almighty, must 
be that Love of God which made Him willing to 
become a Little Baby ! 

Moreover, St. John brings before us a second great 
paradox of this ineffable charity, when he says that 
"the Word was made Flesh, and dwelt," or, literally, 
"tabernacled," "among us." For in this he identifies 
the Word with the Jehovah of the Old Covenant, Who 



SAINT JOHN 



''tabernacled'' with His ancient people in the Tent of 
Meeting, and afterwards, in their Sanctuary (Exodus 
xiv : 24 ; xl : 34 ; I Kings viii : 11). But how incom- 
parably more tender was it when this same dear God 
came and ''tabernacled" among us, not in a Pillar of 
Fire and Cloud, but in our own Human Nature, to 
reveal Divine Wisdom to us with Human Lips, and to 
love us with a Human Heart ! 

Finally, He Who was *4n the beginning" zvas made 
Man. Is it not unspeakably wonderful that He Whose 
Life is immutable should have condescended to accept 
a nature subject to the processes of change? He Who 
is "the same yesterday, to-day and forever" submitted 
to become Flesh in order that He might know by expe- 
rience all the vicissitudes of our human life, from first 
to last. Surely God could not have challenged us, in 
more compelling ways, to respond to His love. 



%\t iFttsft aponaa? in ianbent 

W^t 2KIHitnej5j3ej3 to €|)ni5t 

The Fourth Gospel opens with the most explicit and 
extended teaching in the Holy Scriptures that Christ 
is God, and it reaches a climax in St. Thomas' confes- 
sion of the Risen Jesus: "My Lord and my God'' 
(xx: 28). On the other hand, none of the first three 
Gospels is so explicit in displaying the limitations of 
our Saviour's Manhood ; and St. John is unique, apart 
from St. Paul, in sometimes referring to our Lord by 
the Greek word for "man" which indicates a poor peas- 
ant rather than by that which suggests a gentleman. 
His two great, fundamental truths, about Christ, there- 
fore, are: that He is "God, Only-begotten," and that 



SAINT JOHN 



He is the ^'Son of Man'' (i: i8 A. V. Marg. ; i: 51). 
The Apostle of Love would have us understand that 
God has had part and lot with all of us ordinary folk. 
In riches, social standing and temporal power, He 
deliberately chose to share the fortunes of the lowly. 

Ther^ was less need to urge the reality of Christ's 
Manhood than to insist upon His Deity. For this lat- 
ter, St. John sets forth seven proofs, being the witness 
to Christ: (i) of the Father, (2) of Jesus Himself, 
(3) of His miracles, (4) of the Old Testament, (5) of 
St. John Baptist, (6) of the disciples, and (7) of the 
Holy Ghost (v: 37; viii: I4;.v: 36; v: 39 f. ; i: 7; xv: 
2y ; XV : 26) . Thus the Apostle of Love was theological, 
definite and dogmatic in asserting the true Faith. There 
is a widespread impression in our day that love must 
be tolerant of error, even about our Lord, and amiably 
willing to dilute the truth until our weaker brethren 
can receive it. But true charity towards Jesus and our 
fellowmen dictates that we hold the Catholic Faith 
pure as He committed it to us for them, an inviolable 
trust. 

It is profoundly impressive that such a Gospel, hav- 
ing for its principal purpose to defend the truth of our 
Lord's Dual Nature, should have been written by the 
last of the Apostles. For sixty years he had endured 
the trials, sufferings and dangers which beset the Apos- 
tolic Church. One might have thought that sad expe- 
rience would have dimmed his faith, either in the 
Godhead of Christ with its attribute of almighty Power 
to defend His people, or else in the reality of His Man- 
hood and of the human experience which would fill 
Him with pity for them. But this aged prisoner of 
state, fresh from the stone quarries of Patmos, sur- 
rounded by the apparently unconquerable forces of 



SAINT JOHN 



evil in Ephesus, proclaims his faith in the God-Man 
with absolute certainty. He has learned cumulatively, 
by the triumphs of three-score years, that no darkness, 
however deep, can overcome the Light of Life (i: 5). 
It ''shineth'' with but greater radiance of power and 
love, amid gloom, be it the gloom of First Century 
Asia Minor or that of Twentieth Century America. 



I^|)e jfourtl) (Sojspel (EBpeciallp for ^o^ern €|)rij3tianj3 

The Light from the Word is ever coming to the 
Church in greater volume and radiance, so that a later 
generation is able to understand the original deposit 
of truth in the Holy Scriptures better, and to discern 
in it new relations to men and things. Thus, St. John, 
writing his Gospel in 95 a.d., saw that the world of his 
day and of the future demanded a presentation of our 
Lord's life and teaching which would in ways be differ- 
ent from the treatment of the three older Evangelists. 
Therefore, he records no miracles of Christ except 
those which all generations would value supremely as 
proving the power of the Master over their very own 
times and conditions. He gives us no account of the 
many miracles wrought by Jesus for the cure of lepers 
and those possessed with evil spirits. From his proph- 
et's watch-tower, looking out over the coming ages, he 
foresaw that there would be few demoniacs or lepers 
in those western lands into which the Gospel was so 
rapidly advancing. But there would be poverty, dis- 
ease, hunger, storm winds, blindness and death, and, 
therefore, he tells us of the way in which the God-Man 
showed His supreme Power over every one of these 



SAINT JOHN 



destructive forces. For, as we can see by looking rap- 
idly through his Gospel, he records seven miracles 
wherein our Lord relieved His people from these uni- 
versal evils. 

Again, it is a notable vice in our modern religious 
practice, that we are disposed to regard all righteous- 
ness as external and as consisting entirely in right 
conduct and good works. Now St. John would teach 
us that the spiritual life is primarily interior and hid- 
den. For he discloses to us our Lords motives and 
plans, the dependence of His Human Heart upon His 
Father, and His craving love of men. He had lain 
upon the Lord's Breast and learned heavenly secrets 
from the very Soul of his Master. Rightly, therefore, 
his Gospel is called ''The History of the Inner Life 
of Jesus Christ." And through it he would bring 
home to us the ancient truth that ''what we do springs 
from what we are.'' 

Finally, the Church to-day seems to be facing a very 
gloomy future. There are traitors within her and as- 
sailants without. The last of the Apostles has much 
comfort for us in this discouraging situation. For, 
in a passage which the great interpreters attribute to 
him, as his comment on Church conditions in a.d. 95, 
he tells us that *no man was receiving the testimony 
of Christ' (iii:32). "The whole world," as he de- 
clares elsewhere, "lieth in the Evil One" (i St. John 
v: 19). It has been truly said that "the close of the 
apostolic age was a period of singular darkness and 
hopelessness." But in spite of the fact that Christians 
were refusing to receive the Gospel, and that there was 
even less decency in that Ephesian world than there 
is in the American world of to-day, the Fourth Gospel 
is the most hopeful and joyful of all. Let us then, like 



SAINT JOHN 



St. John, be invincible optimists, relying upon Him 
who said that the gates of Hell should not prevail 
against His Church. 

€^^e Incarnation w of Supreme lvalue 

St. John alone among the Evangelists begins his 
Gospel with a summary of our Lord's Incarnate Life, 
rather than with His Nativity. Even in the three 
earlier Gospels, however, and in the Epistles, it is 
astonishing how little space Christ's Birth occupies, 
v^hen we consider how lovely and appealing it is. We 
would have thought that many long chapters and 
probably whole Epistles would have been devoted to 
descriptions of the dear God lying in the cave with 
the cattle, His Hands, which had hung out the Stars, 
now playing with a little straw. But, in fact, even our 
Lord Himself never referred explicitly to His Birth, 
nor would He say that He was born in the City of 
David even when challenged to do so. And, at the 
end of the first Christian century, when St. John wrote, 
it had become true, all the more, that the thing which 
seemed to Christians to be of supreme importance was 
not the Divine Baby in the manger, but God Incarnate. 
The beginning in time of His Human Life was but one 
supereminently luminous point in the glorious eternity 
of His Being. Let us never so lose ourselves in the 
sweetness and pathos of the Christmas Crib, that we 
fail to see in Him Who lies there Emmanuel, God 
with us. 

It is this gift of the eternally preexistent Christ 
which is the unparalleled proof of Perfect Love. To 



SAINT JOHN 



this sacrifice of God's Own and His All, we owe that 
certainty of His Providence which can bear us up in 
our suffering. Once it seemed obvious on the face of 
the visible order that we men were the favorite crea- 
tures of God. We supposed that our earth was the 
center of the solar system. The countless orbs of 
Heaven were thought to revolve about us and were 
principally for the welfare of our race. But modern 
astronomy has revealed that there are four thousand 
million suns as large as ours, or larger. This world is 
only an atom- of dust on the outskirts of creation. If 
it were not that God has sought out our tiny, dark, 
cold, earth, and taken our nature upon Him forever, 
we could not be sure of His love at the very times we 
need Him most. 

But it is equally true that, in our prosperity, the 
great spiritual uplift which alone can save us from 
materialism is the life of the God-Man. The passen- 
ger on one of our Eastern railways sees an allegory 
of this truth, as arresting as if some modern Jeremiah 
had placed' it there. For, as he speeds along, he meets 
a procession of huge bill-boards, boasting of all man- 
ner of things for men's comfort and enjoyment. And 
there, marching bravely in the midst, as if hoping to 
redeem and transfigure all the rest, is one bearing upon 
it in great letters the glorious boast of the Church: 
"J^sus Christ is God.'* So must we stand, amid the 
passing show of all this world's joys, fearlessly pro- 
claiming Incarnate God as the one only Glory of man's 
Ufe. 



SAINT JOHN 



W^t iFir0t ^5ttt0iiap in SHitient 

^oH t^e eternal 6iber 

Jesus ''came unto His own [home] and His own 
[people] received Him not/' In these few pathetic 
words, the Beloved Disciple begins his tragedy of Di- 
vine Love. Indeed, we might almost say that he makes 
three acts, indicated by the use here and just twice 
later in His Gospel of the strong, unusual word trans- 
lated ''received/' First, then, he shows us God the 
Father giving His Only-begotten to His people, and 
the Jews refusing to receive Him, although He was but 
claiming admission to His own home. It is a rejection 
repeated with dull monotony all through the succeed- 
ing ages. For instance, are there not many clubs and 
societies in America which blackball a certain Appli- 
cant without a voice raised in His favor? 

But there came a time when the Jews did not reject 
Him. Pilate "delivered Him unto them to be crucified 
and they received Him'' (xix: i6). Their hospitality 
was a halter and a scourge and a cross. Nor can we 
confine the guilt of that Deicide to one race. It at- 
taches to the Christian nations as well. How many 
million Christian hearts among us receive Jesus only 
to crucify Him! 

Now, what awful reprisals does God intend to take? 
In return for our excluding Him even from a place on 
earth to lay His Head, and then admitting Him to the 
treatment we mete out to the lowest criminals. He will 
give Heaven and eternal life to all who will permit 
Him to save them. He has gone to prepare a place for 
us, and with this promise: "I will come again, and 
receive youi unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may 
be also" (xiv: 3). This is the dear revenge of the 



SAINT JOHN 



Eternal Giver, a reception into an immortality of 
happiness beyond our understanding now, as the re- 
ward for our making Him the 'Very Scorn of men and 
the Outcast of the people/' Surely such a revelation 
of God's incredible mercy fills our Advent with the 
challenge of Love, even more than with that of Holy 
Fear. Surely, too, it teaches us what St. John means 
when he calls us the ''children of God.'' 



W^t fit^X JFtfliap ixi adbent 

%%t €|)iltiren of <Soti 

Our dear Leader, St. John, alone among the Evan- 
gelists, and, except St. Paul, alone among the sacred 
writers of the Bible, describes God's people as His 
"children" by a Greek word which expresses actual 
relationship (i: 12). There is another noun, which is 
customarily employed for "children," and this means 
simply "young people." Also, St. John learned his term 
for Christians from our Lord. Still again, Jesus used 
it for the first time the night before He suffered, and, 
apparently, directly after He had celebrated the first 
Eucharist, and communicated the nucleus of His 
Church gathered about Him with the Blessed Sacra- 
ment of His own Humanity (xiii: 33). Thus when 
our Apostle calls us **God's children," or ^'little chil- 
dren," he is using an expression drawn from our Lord 
Himself and having the tenderest and most sacred 
meaning and associations. 

But we will understand this conception of the Apos- 
tle of Love more clearly, if we trace it from its earliest 
form in Genesis (vi:2). There first we read of the 
**sons of God," that is, the better and more faithful 



10 SAINT JOHN 



line of Adam's descendants. The thought is that they 
are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. i: 
26). They were meant to walk in close fellowship 
with their Creator, and to reveal Him, at least in a 
dim way, to their fellow-men. This is indicated by 
the fact that the word ''image'' means really ''shadow- 
image." As a man's shadow is ever by his side, shows 
the outline of his figure, and, however poorly, repre- 
sents his person, so the sons of God are to walk hum- 
bly with Him, and, albeit imperfectly, to manifest a 
similarity to His Nature. Now, when we reach St. 
Paul, far along in the progress of revelation, we find 
that his most prominent idea of sonship toward God 
is that of adoption, through union with Christ (Eph. 
i: 5 f.). The great Apostle of the Gentiles knew well 
the power and privileges springing from adoption, for 
freedom and many immunities and advantages, in the 
Roman Empire, had come to him through his having 
been adopted by one of its citizens (cp. e.g. Acts xxii: 
25-29). But as to the children of the Kingdom of God, 
the Catholic Church, he considers that every one of 
them not only gained freedom and many priceless 
privileges by his adoption in Baptism, but, more than 
this, became^the "image and glory" of the King (i 
Cor. xi: 7). It is in St. John, however, that the long 
process reaches its consummation. The distinctive con- 
ception of our relationship to God in his writings is 
that of sonship by actual generation, as well as by crea- 
tion and by adoption. The Christian is, in Baptism, 
"born," or literally "begotten," "of God" (i: 13; cp. 
I St. John iii: 9). 

Now it is the way of us fallen creatures "to walk in 
a painted image/* and disquiet ourselves foolishly over 
temporal, material things (Ps. xxxix:6, A. V. Old 



SAINT JOHN 



Marg.). Our self-love daubs us over with the paint 
of false pride. Shall we not rather be proud of our 
caste as the children of God, and seek, with genuine 
self-love, to reveal always the image and likeness of 
Him by Whom we have been begotten? 



W^t iFft0t &aturliap in adbent 

The Beloved Apostle loved to show that all good 
things spring from Jesus as their Source. For this 
purpo>se he has been at pains' to include in his Gk>spel 
those teachings of his Master in which He declared 
Himself to be the Food, the Light and the Life of men, 
and the Fountain-head of ''living water" (vi: 48; viii: 
12; xiv: 6; iv: 10). For life, light, food and water 
are the four necessities for man's physical welfare, and 
the spiritual essentials which our Lord signified by 
these symbols are all our souls need and are all found 
in Him. St. John summarizes the fuller teaching, 
however, in his Prologue, saying simply that ''the 
Word made Flesh, is full of grace and truth," where 
the equivalent of spiritual life, food and drink is grace, 
and the synonym of the Divine light is truth. 

But if the truth in Christ is light, nothing can be 
hidden from it. Every evasion, every disloyalty, every 
hidden sin of our souls, lies exposed in the radiance 
of Jesus' gaze. Consequently, we must be always re- 
ceiving more sanctifying grace through the sacraments 
to cleanse and quicken us, and inflame us with love. 
As St. Bernard says : "E^ch of these is necessary to 
me: truth, that I may not be able to hide myself, grace 
that I may not desire to." There is no stint in the sup- 



12 SAINT JOHN 



ply of grace. ''O'f His fulness have all we received." 
But there is a limit which we establish in ourselves if 
we do not use the measure bestowed upon us. The 
Divine rule is to give ''grace for grace/' that is, to 
give more when that already infused into our souls 
has wrought piety and good works. Except for the 
obstruction of our own self-will, therefore, we would 
all be full of grace drawn from our Lord's Soul; as 
the rivers are filled from the vast ocean, through those 
sacraments of nature, the clouds. 

Continuing, St. John points to another motive for 
being avaricious of grace. ''The Law was given 
through Moses,'' he says, "but grace and truth came 
through Jesus Christ." His carefully chosen phrase 
''through Moses" indicates that the Ten Command- 
ments came ''from God." He gave them, moreover, in 
a way to commend them to the deepest reverence of 
His people. They were written by the Holy Ghost,, 
the "Finger of God," and delivered to His great saint 
by the ministry of the holy angels (Ex. xxxi: i8; St. 
Luke xi: 20, cp. St. Matt, xii: 28; Gal. iii : 19). Nor 
are they less sacred, but rather more, to the Catholic 
Church than to God's ancient people. We are, indeed, 
more responsible for keeping them, because, for one 
thing, we are entrusted with a far more complete reve- 
lation of the truth. Accordingly, Jesus Christ, Him« 
self, full of grace, must come to us Christians in the 
Blessed Sacrament, and endue us with power to keep 
His holy Law. 



SAINT JOHN 13 



ttl^c ^econti 2aHeefe in 3ltibent* Read St. John i : 15-36 

W^t &econti &untia]^ in i^tibent 

W^z temptation of ^t« 3[ol)n l^aptijst 

At the same time that our Lord was enduring His 
forty days of fasting and trial on the mount, His great 
Forerunner was being tempted in the valley of the Jor- 
dan. It was a very real strain upon the Baptist's will 
when the Sanhedrists came to him offering to accept 
him as Elijah or as that greatest of the prophets fore- 
told by Moses, or even as the Christ. For, in a spirit- 
ual sense he was Elijah. Had not the angel prophesied 
of him : ''He shall go before [Christ] in the spirit and 
power of Elias?'' (St. Luke i: 17.) And indeed we 
have the statement of Jesus Himself that in the holy 
Baptist was fulfilled the prophecy that Elijah would 
herald Him (St. Matt, xvii : 10-13). He was the last 
and greatest of the Old Testament prophets (St. Luke 
vii:26f.). He may have known also that he had so 
deeply stirred the religious and patriotic sentiments of 
his people that there was a wide disposition to accept 
him as the Messiah (St. Luke iii:i5). Besides, the 
committee of the Sanhedrin paid him a very great 
honor in Vv^aiting upon him, and at the same time made 
a concession to his claims; for it was written in their 
traditions that when Elijah came he would first of all 
present himself before the Sanhedrin to obtain his 
credentials. But St. John had entirely ignored them, 
and, after waiting for a time, they had humbled them- 
selves and had come to seek him. It might well have 
seemed to the Baptist that it was only fair to meet 
them half way. Finally, there were many ways in 
which he could have used the interview thus sought 



14 SAINT JOHN 



by the haughty leaders of the Jews to increase his al- 
ready great popularity and prestige. 

Now, we must observe that he utterly refused to 
dally with this multiform temptation, and his answers 
to the Pharisees became increasingly brief as they 
pressed him to talk about himself. ''Who art thou?" 
"I am not the Christ/' "Art thou Elijah?" "I am 
not !" ''Art thou that prophet T "No !" In the Greek, 
it is as if he were biting off his sentences. The third 
answer, in two letters, has a particularly final sound. 
The questioners weakened, as the Baptist thus rebuffed 
them. They began the interview proudly and boldly 
enough : ''Thou — who art thou ?" is the literal force 
of their demand. But their lofty tone subsided into a 
cringing one before St. John's determined rejection of 
his temptation. "Who art thou ?" they begged appeal- 
ingly. "We only venture to ask so that we can give 
an answer to those who sent us." So it is with us. 
If we resolutely refuse to entertain even the first sug- 
gestion of the Devil, he will cower, and presently flee 
before us. 

Our Evangelist twice in one doubly emphatic state- 
ment says of his Namesake, that the Baptist "con- 
fessed." In the Fouirth Gospel this word always indi- 
cates a victory of faith and love. Our inspiration to 
resist self-love, like his, is the conquest we make of 
Jesus' enemies, and the glory we give thereby to His 
great name of Saviour. . 

W^z &econti Sl^ontia? in )atrbent 

St 3[o|)n IBaptiist t|)e tZTrue i^eralti of ^|)rijait 

The holy Baptist had the strongest possible motives 
for concluding that Jesus was the Christ long before 



SAINT JOHN 15 



the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him betokened 
His Messianic office infallibly. Evidently, he had, be- 
fore the baptism of Jesus, known Him as superemi- 
nently holy, for when his divine Cousin approached 
him at the Jordan, he would have prevented Him from 
receiving the laver of repentance, saying: ''I have 
need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" 
(St. Matt, iii: 13 ff.). And this plain admission of 
his inferiority to the Boy and Man with Whom he had 
grown up is clear testimony to his great reverence for 
the sanctity of our Lord. Indeed, it is all but an asser- 
tion of His Messiahship, for only the Lord Himself 
ought to baptize His Forerunner. Yet he would not 
proclaim Jesus as Christ, until the appointed sign had 
been given. Until it was revealed to him, he ''knew 
nof Jesus as the Messiah. However appropriate he 
saw that it would be for God to reveal Jesus as the 
Saviour, he would not anticipate the revelation of Him. 
In this way, he teaches us that we must be guided by 
the actual revelation of the Allwise God, in the Bible 
as interpreted by Holy Church. It would be foolish 
and irreverent for us to follow our own prior assump- 
tion that this or that would be appropriate for God, 
and therefore must be the way in which he deals with 
our souls. 

Again, St. John was not influenced in the least by 
the popular speculations of what the Messiah would be 
like, nor by desire for the applause of the Jews. They 
were looking for a great Warrior who would lead them 
to victory against the Romans. If he had been a false 
prophet, he would have declared that he had beheld a 
gigantic eagle descending upon Jesus' head to mark 
Him out as one before Whom the eagles of the Romans 
would go down to defeat. But, truthfully, he pro- 



16 SAINT JOHN 



claimed that he had been shown, not an eagle on 
Messiah's helm, but a Dove abiding in His Heart. 
The revelation was in fact, not of a great conqueror 
who should lead the Jews to victory against the hated 
invaders, but of One about Whom there was to be **a 
brooding peace, a lowly gentleness, a still small voice." 
In our day, also, there are plausible and often attrac- 
tive descriptions of imaginary Christs, but our Lord is 
He Who was revealed in the Gospels. 

Finally, the holy Forerunner would not permit his 
temperament and prejudices to make him less recep- 
tive of revealed truth. His natural disposition was 
severe, his whole training had been sternly ascetical, 
and his indignation against the wickedness and hypoc- 
risy of the Jews was great. He had expected our 
Lord to come with a flail to separate the wheat of His 
own disciples from the chaff of the unrepentant, and 
with unquenchable fire wherewith immediately to burn 
the chaff (St. Matt, iii: 12). Then appeared the lowly 
Saviour taking His place with sinners in the baptism 
of repentance. Instead of the Mighty One (St. Luke 
iii: 16), the stern Judge executing instant vengeance 
upon His enemies, ''behold the Lamb of God!" Yet 
St. John immediately accepted and proclaimed the 
Messiah as He was. Thus he teaches us a third great 
lesson, that we can surmount the limitations of tem- 
perament and defy inherited or acquired prejudice, 
which would exclude from our hearts the Christ of the 
Gospels and His teaching. Let us resolve that we 
will ever hold fast to Him Who comes to us down the 
ages of Catholic tradition. 



SAINT JOHN 17 



^t 3[ot)n IBaptfet agi t|)e ^ppe of t|)e ^ruc ©riejst 

St. John completely lost himself in his office as our 
Lord's Forerunner. He was simply the 'Voice of one 
crying in the wilderness.'' In the presence of Christ 
his separate entity was lost. A voice has no existence 
until it is uttered and then at once it disappears on the 
air and leaves no record of itself. Yet it was by no 
means the individuality of the Baptist which was thus 
suppressed, but his natural individualism. For evi- 
dently his personality continued definite and strong. 
If we examine his statements, we find the ''I's" very 
frequent, and in the Greek these are particularly em- 
phatic, because they are expressed by the pro- 
noun, instead of being implied in the form of the verb, 
as is usual where there is no special emphasis on the 
personality of the speaker. But his self-consciousness 
had given way to the consciousness of his ministry as 
our Lord's herald. And the more the Christian priest, 
like St. John, loses himself in his sacred office for the 
High-priest, the greater will be the holiness and power 
of his personality and the less will be his individualism. 
Let the lay-people help him to this self-consecration 
by seeking from him a Christ-like cure of their souls, 
rather than natural attractiveness or brilliance. 

As a preacher, St. John was exactly suited to his peo- 
ple's wants, in the sense that he was an ascetic, a priest, 
and a prophet. For in this way he was the appropriate 
minister for the three principal sections of the Jews, 
the strict Pharisees, the hierarchy and the main body 
of the lay-people, and that small but all-important 
group who were eagerly expecting the advent of a 
true prophet after the centuries of silence following 

3 



18 SAINT JOHN 



Malachi. Consequently, he inspired his hearers pro- 
foundly so that ''all men mused in their hearts of 
John, whether he were the Christ or no'' (St. Luke 
iii: 15). Yet he never courted popularity nor yielded 
to it when it came unsought. So completely was he 
absorbed in preaching Christ, that naught remained of 
him except a voice, but that voice framed the Word 
of God. 

In his character, he united the qualities of the seer 
and the practical servant of Christ. He performed 
his day's duty to the least detail, while his eyes were 
straining for the vision of Christ. Moreover, while 
he was abjectly humble, too mean in his own eyes, 
indeed, to perform a slave's office for Christ, yet he 
was fearless before Herod's court, when his own life 
was at stake. Now, ''As with the people, so with the 
priest" (Isa. xxiv: 2). If our congregations want 
priests and prophets like St. John Baptist, they must 
produce them. Only holy parents can give the Church 
holy ministers. When there are more St. Elisabeths, 
there will be more seers and martyrs. 



^t 3fo|bn 'Bapti0t'}3 ^Sermon 

The burden of the proclamation made by our Lord's 
herald was, "Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven 
is at hand." Often, however, he expressed this same 
thought in the words of Isaiah (xl: 3), "Make straight 
the way of the Lord," or, more fully, "Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every val- 
ley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be 
brought low ; and the crooked shall be made straight, 



SAINT JOHN 19 



and the rough ways shall be made smooth/' Now, the 
meaning of Isaiah's cry, thus adopted by the Baptist, 
was that Jehovah was about to return from Babylon, 
leading his people home to the Promised Land, and 
He demanded a new, straight road to be constructed 
for him through the desert. There was a roundabout, 
conventional, wide highway from Babylon to Jerusa- 
lem, but the Lord would lead his people straight for- 
ward, by the shortest way, although this involved level- 
ing valleys, straightening out curves, and smoothing 
down innumerable rough places. The meaning was, 
of course, that God's people must make for him a 
straight and speedy way into their heart of hearts. 

There were certain principles of gentleness and ap- 
pealing kindness which Christ's great Servant followed 
in this sermon of his. In the first place, he assumed 
that there was some knowledge of his subject already 
in his hearers' minds. He does not think it necessary 
to explain the ancient prophecy he uses. The people 
are familiar with its meaning and the way in which 
it was fulfilled by the return of the exiles. Far oftener 
than we usually suppose, this same method of teaching 
was used by those earliest preachers of Christ. The 
Apostle of Love customarily takes a tone with those 
to whom he writes, as if he would say, 'T tell you this, 
but of course you already know it in substance." Is 
not our own method very different from this, very 
often ? Are not we obnoxious to the charge of Freder- 
ick Dennison Maurice that we act as if we could 
teach people by screaming the truth in their ears ? We 
will be more successful in converting unbelievers, if 
we gladly recognize all that is true in the position they 
are already holding. 



20 SAINT JOHN 



In two other ways, St. John gained sympathy and 
receptivity in his congregation, (a) He did not ignore 
the difficulties which beset the course he was advocat- 
ing. It was a hard matter to make a straight highway 
through a wilderness. It was even m.ore difficult to 
smooth a path for Jesus Christ over the mountainous 
obstacles of human pride and selfishness, (b) He 
sounded, in his sermon, a great note of joy and tri- 
umph. Jehovah was leading His people home, in the 
thought of Isaiah, and St. John pictured Him entering 
into His creature's heart and bringing with Him the 
Kingdom of Heaven. . 

3. 

£Dur il9rti*j3 l^dp to ^t Ifo|)n "Baptist 

The great Herald of Christ knew, it seems, that he 
would never live to see the triumph of his Master. 
His humble saying, ''I am not worthy to stoop down 
and unloose the latchet of His sandals and then carry 
them away," as, we may collect from the Gospels, is 
his complete metaphor, probably involves a prophecy 
of his own speedy death. For he refers to the slave's 
duty to his master at the end of a journey, or when 
his lord has returned from the battlefield. It was then 
at the conclusion of the dusty, laborious march, when 
the strife had ended in victory, that the master sat 
down and received from his servant the removal of his 
sandals and the refreshing bath for his feet. And St. 
John foresaw that he must be content with the honor 
of announcing the beginning of our Lord's long, ardu- 
ous ''way." Others would unloose His sandals, when 
the journey's end had come, and He had triumphed in 
the mxortal strife of His Passion. 



SAINT JOHN 21 



But if the Baptist must loolc forward to his own 
martyrdom, and see it, too, directly before him, he had 
the help of his Lord's example to strengthen and en- 
courage him. For he was allowed to understand what 
seems to have been hidden from the comprehension of 
the Twelve until the very end of Jesus' ministry, that 
He, being the Lamb of God, must be sacrificed to "take 
away the sins of the world/' Perhaps the sacrificial 
lambs for the Passover were being driven past St. 
John at the time, and, seeing them without spot or 
blemish, in their innocence, going on to die for the 
sins of the people, he was the better able to foresee 
the martyrdom of the Son of God, and its blessed 
sacrificial value for the sons of men. Certainly he 
understood, at least dimly, that God had come into the 
world to die for him, and so he gained great strength 
and courage to die for God. 

For John was fearless throughout his rugged, 
stormy career, and that while he stood alone. Most 
m^en can pluck up courage when they stand abreast of 
their fellows. But the Baptist grew up as a solitary 
of the desert. He came forth to preach alone, he was 
imprisoned in solitary confinement, and he died there 
in the gloomy prison of Machserus at midnight, alone. 
Surely, the secret of his unflinching bravery was his 
knowledge that in his loneliness also, he was like the 
Lamb of God. His Cousin must tread the winepress 
alone, and always, in His Heart of Hearts, bear the 
isolation of One supremely great. Thus St. John 
would be certain, during the long weeks of his confine- 
ment, that God the Father must have some wise and 
beneficent purpose in his loneliness, inasmuch as He 
was leading His very own Son by solitary ways. 



22 SAINT JOHN 



W^t &econ& iFtiliap in atifamt 

^elMienial for lejsujs' ^a&e 

Heroic as the holy Baptist was, his words, perhaps 
involuntarily, betray the effort which his self-denial 
cost him. Thus in the Greek of his saying, **This is 
He of Whom I said, after me cometh a Man Which 
is preferred before me, for He was before me," the 
words ''of Whom I said" mean ''in Whose behalf I 
said.'' And wherever this expression occurs in the 
Fourth Gospel it implies that a sacrifice has been made 
in behalf of another. It was not easy for St. John to 
renounce his great popularity, and declare his utter 
inferiority to Jesus. But he had the inspiration of 
knowing that the One for Whom he thus denied him- 
self was the eternal Son of God. ''For He was before 
me," he says of Christ, although our Lord was born 
six months later than His Forerunner. St. John has 
in view the eternal preexistence of the Lord, and he is 
content to give up all in behalf of such a Master. 

Once more, we observe that it had been the plan of 
the Baptist, from the beginning, so to act that men 
would turn away from him to follow Christ. ''That 
He should be made manifest to Israel,'' he declared, 
"Therefore am I come baptizing." As his baptism of 
repentance cleansed from men's spiritual eyes the 
blinding blear of sin, they would recognize Christ as 
their Saviour. And inevitably, his followers would in 
this way desert him. It was due to no sudden burst 
of generous love for Christ, therefore, but to a pur- 
pose formed perhaps far back in his wilderness life, 
when first he knew that he was destined to go before 
the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, that he now 
took the very course which would plunge him from 



SAINT JOHN 23 



his lofty pinnacle of popularity into the depths of ob- 
scurity and dereliction. 

Moreover, we see from the sacred narrative how 
every detail of his ministry was planned according to 
his life purpose of self-denial. When the Pharisees 
challenged him to explain why he was baptizing, if he 
was not the Qirist, or Elijah or the greatest of the 
prophets, he answered that he was baptizing with 
water, but there was One for Whom he was simply 
herald. Who would baptize with the Holy Ghost. They 
had attacked him on the score that only the Messiah, 
or one of the two greatest prophets, ought to treat the 
chosen people as unclean. But his answer meant that 
he was a nobody and that his baptism in water ought 
to be allowed to him because it was merely prefatory 
to the real laver in the Blessed Spirit. And our Evan- 
gelist is careful to record that St. John thus renounced 
all claim to eminence ''in Bethabara beyond Jordan, 
where [he] was baptizing." Upon which St. Chrysos- 
tom remarks : ''It was not in a house, nor in a comer, 
nor in the desert, but in the midst of the multitude, that 
St. John made that admirable confession.'' Let us 
learn from this great saint how complete may be our 
conquest of self-love for the sake of our dear Saviour. 



W^t feeconti &atuctia? in iatibent 

^t> 3fo|)n IBsptwt'jB ^racl^inc on lactation 

The holy Forerunner of Christ revealed to us by his 
example the great principles of that fundamental thing 
in each of our lives — vocation. For each of us is called 
to be in some way the forerunner of our Lord, whether 
it be in the world or in the Religious Life, whether it 



24 SAINT JOHN 



is the Divine purpose that we become priests or that 
we do our part for the training of others for the 
Sacred Ministry. We read that St. John ''stood" 
watching for Christ. Hie was not engaged in preach- 
ing and baptizing. Indeed this was probably the Sab- 
bath when he was enjoined to rest, even from his 
spiritual labors. No. He stands on the alert to see 
Christ again, full of eager love for his Master and zeal 
for His success. Yet, when he once more beheld the 
Lamb of God, he announced Christ indefinitely, speak- 
ing in an impersonal way, into the air, as if address- 
ing no one in particular. Evidently, his thought was 
that he must preach vocation, but must leave it to come 
home to the hearts of his disciples by the interior guid- 
ance of the Holy Ghost And we also should expect 
these two complementary evidences of vocation, in our 
own case, the call of the Church, sounding in our ears, 
and the impulse of God moving us to respond, in our 
hearts. 

In these few verses before us (i:35 f.), we have the 
description of the beginning of the Catholic Church, 
which is perhaps the most stupendous fact in the his- 
tory of mankind, for it is the institution of the King- 
dom of Heaven on earth. But was this divine economy 
of grace initiated by a mighty miracle wrought before 
the eyes of all the world ? Was it not rather begun by 
the practical application which two obscure men, in 
one tiny corner of the earth, gave to a merely general 
suggestion falling from the lips of a preacher of ' 
Christ? What issues of incalculable importance, per- 
haps in the far distant future, may depend upon my 
obedience to even an intimation f romi God ! 

It is remarkable, also, that Christ was at this mo- 
ment of destiny walking away from those whom He 



SAINT JOHN 25 



had eternally purposed should be the first disciples. 
The day before, He had ''come unto" them, but now 
He is making ''as though He would have gone'' away. 
This was to teach them, and us, that in the develop- 
ment of vocation, there are, first, the approach and 
appeal and attraction of the Lamb of God; and then 
presently what seems to be His flight from us. We 
must not, at any such time of spiritual desolation, be 
too much cast down, but, following these first disci- 
ples, pursue Him with faith and love, until we once 
more gain His tender fellowship. 



^l;e ^|)irti Mf eelt 'vx ^lUfaent* Read St. John i : 37-44 

Wc^t 9lpo;5tIe of Hobe 

In the passage for our study during this week, we 
for the first time come upon our dear Apostle of Love. 
There is truth in the saying that the three great Theo- 
logical Virtues are exemplified in the three greatest 
Apostles : faith in St. Paul, hope in St. Peter, and love 
in St. John. The Beloved Disciple, therefore, is dis- 
tinguished for the greatest of all spiritual qualities, 
and one which made him supereminently like Christ. 
For, our Lord had in His GJodhead neither faith nor 
hope, since God knows all things and therefore be- 
lieves nothing, while He also possesses all things and 
therefore hopes for nothing. Moreover, in His Hu- 
man Mind, Christ probably saw God, throughout His 
life on earth, and in the Beatific Vision knew with 
absolute certainty the truth, in which we believe with- 
out seeing; and He possessed that fruition of our 
Christian life for which we only hope. Accordingly, 



26 SAINT JOHN 



it was appropriate that the Apostle who was remark- 
able above all others for Divine Charity should be espe- 
cially marked out by Jesus as the disciple whom He 
loved, since He was Perfect Charity. 

From- this fact, that St. John's love was like that of 
Christ, it follows that it was no sentimental, girlish 
characteristic, but was intensely practical. Maurice was 
stirred almost to indignation by the feminine smooth- 
ness of St. John's face in Leonardo da Vinci's fresco 
of the Last Supper. ''Was not St. John the Apostle 
of Love?'' he exclaimed, ''Then in such a world of 
hate and misery as this, do you not think he must have 
had more furrows in his cheek than all the other 
apostles?" And Kingsley, who records this episode, 
knew that his friend "spoke true" of St. John. His 
writings are full of proofs that in his view Christian- 
ity amounts to nothing, unless our daily life is instinct 
with it. We are to "Jo righteousness," and "do the 
Truth," and "to have Eternal Life" now and here. 

We shall often have occasion to notice how prac- 
tically our saintly conductor applied the law of love 
in his own life. But we may observe here, that it led 
him to be very appreciative of his fellow disciples and 
of their positive beauties of character. It is to him we 
owe those portrayals of Andrew, Philip, Nathanael and 
Thomas, which reveal them to have been our own dear 
brethren as well as our saintly exemplars in the spir- 
itual life. Except for his love these would be but 
names to^ us. Let us learn from him, as the first les- 
son of love for our neighbor, that, in the circle of our 
own home and of our group of friends, we must love 
best to seek out and find what is gracious and lovely, 
and to keep these characteristics before our minds. 



SAINT JOHN 27 



^|)e l^umilitg of ^t» 3[o|)n t|)e OBbancelist 

Love made our Apostle modest, and that according 
to both its meanings, for he was both humble and 
pure. He is too modest ever to speak of himself by 
name, and even the title of honor by which he refers 
to himself, is one in which we all share with him. 
He might well have boasted about the loyalty and 
devotion of his brother, St. James, and of his mother, 
Salome, but he so shrank from' attracting attention to 
himself, that he leaves his brother entirely out of ac- 
count, and mentions Salome's watch before the Cross 
only in a very obscure way, referring to her by the 
phrase ''His mother's sister'' (xix: 25). In the same 
way, and constrained all the more by modesty, he no- 
where suggests that he was the nephew of the Blessed 
Virgin, and cousin of the Incarnate God. 

This same kind of humility comes out prominently 
in certain facts about his sacred literary work. Al- 
though it must have seemed to be indicated by his 
knowledge of our Lord's life on earth, by the further 
revelations about Jesus which came to him from the 
Blessed Mother after he took her to his own home 
(xix: 2y^^ and by his apostolic authority, that he 
should write a Gospel, he consented to do' this only at 
the request of the faithful, according to the ancient 
tradition. 

Frequently, in his Epistles, he puts himself on a level 
with his 'little children." For example, when he must 
warn them against that very unreality in their Chris- 
tian life which was so far removed from himself, he 
gently makes the exhortation conditional, and delicate- 
ly and humbly includes himself. '7/ we say that we 



28 SAINT JOHN 



have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness we lie 
and do not the truth/' Thus lovingly vvith his '*if's" 
and his 'Sve's" he softens wdiat otherwise would be a 
stern rebuke. May Love teach us humility like his, 
and give us a share in his modesty in regard to our 
family and our performances, and in his gentleness 
and lowliness in correcting those under our charge. 

JSt 3fo]^n tbe dBbangelist a ©oUel of ^eIf*conj3ecration 

For the sake of Jesus, St. John vv^as from his youth 
dcA^oted to the celibate life. And out of his virgin 
estate grew, for one thing, his appreciation of holy 
women. One notices how frequently he describes, with 
the utmost sympathy, some episode in vv^hich the chief 
humxan actor is a woman, and invariably the incident 
redounds to her praise. Again, it seems to have been 
natural to him, since he had no' children of his own, 
to give his paternal instinct and love expression by 
adopting the people of his entire archdiocese as his 
'little ones.'' 

Our leader is, moreover, a model of religious pov- 
erty. While he was a young man of some wealth, of 
the family of David, and of brilliant prospects in view 
of his intellectual endowment and his favor in the 
high-priests' palace, he gave up everything to follow 
Christ. Indeed if it had been possible he would, ap- 
parently, have given up his very name, for in his Gos- 
pel he resigns it entirely to St. John Baptist, whom he 
always calls by the simple title ''John," as if there were 
no other John among our Lord's disciples. 

He was obedient not simply to the instructions of 
his first superior, the holy Baptist, but to a mere inti- 



SAINT JOHN 29 



mation from him, as we have seen. One suspects that 
he took the initiative in following our Lord, and that 
St. Andrew was guided by him. But whether or not 
this was true, the debt which the world owes to his 
generous obedience is incalculable, for with these two 
first disciples the Christian Church began. The time 
was early spring, and probably the equinox, as the 
ancient tradition asserts. In our day, an earthly mon- 
arch began his drive with the vast hosts of his armies 
at the vernal equinox. How great is the contrast be- 
tween the millions of soldiers and the roar of uncount- 
ed guns of the one king, and the two Galilean fishermen 
of the Other! Yet the religious obedience of these 
two countrymen to the will of the God-Man accom- 
plished that which the gigantic forces of the earthly 
king failed to do — it initiated the conquest of the whole 
world for their Master. . 

^t* Ifoi^n t|)e dEbangelijst'gi Keligiousi Spirit 

Our beloved Teacher was always full of gladness 
over the choice he made at his first meeting with 
Christ. Sixty-five years afterwards, when he wrote 
his Gospel, that cry of the Baptist, ''After me cometh 
One Who is preferred before me," rang sweet and 
clear in his heart. Three times he mentions it (i: 15, 
^7? 30), in the course of sixteen verses. These words 
contain a main part of the instruction which soon sent 
him after Christ, and accordingly he remembers them 
with deep gratitude, because they brought him the 
supreme happiness of his life. 

Evidently, he began to live when first he gained 
comradeship with Jesus. All his life, he recollected 



30 SAINT JOHN 



that it was "about the tenth hour/' when he first went 
to abide with his Saviour. 

He was always ready and wilHng to do more than 
was required of him. Indeed, it was because he was 
generous, rather than merely legal, in his religious 
spirit, that he had the opportunity of becoming one of 
the first disciples. For this was the Sabbath day, it 
seems, when his rule allowed rest, and when the re- 
mainder of the Baptist's little community were using 
the dispensation. Only St. John and St. Andrew were 
with their good director, and according to their more 
generous eagerness to serve, it was done unto them. 
For Christ also there was no Sabbath rest, when these 
two hearts were waiting to pledge Him their allegi- 
ance; and to them first of all the world. He revealed 
Himself as the Messiah. Let us be sure that whenever 
we will we can please our Lord by giving Him the 
offering of a free heart, and that He will by no means 
let Himself be outdone in generosity, but will set His 
Heart upon the disciple who so rejoices in his religion 
that he serves when he might lawfully rest. 



St* Hfol^n t|)e (Kfaancelijjt'f Oebelopment 

Even the Beloved Disciple had faults. He showed 
zeal that was not according to knowledge, nor suffici- 
ently dominated by love, when he would have called 
down fire upon the inhospitable Samaritan village. He 
must learn that the fire our Saviour meant to send 
upon those poor foolish hearts was from a Spirit quite 
different from that which was misleadirg the young 
Apostle (cp. St. Luke ix: 54 ff., and Acts viii: 5-17). 



SAINT JOHN 31 



Also, he was ambitious to occupy a position at the right 
Hand or the Left of Christ in His earthly Kingdom. 
For the ineffable tenderness of Divine Charity was still 
beyond his ken. He had not seen the Cross, the 
Throne of Love, upon which Christ was to reign, with 
the repentant thief, the soul in dire need of Him, on 
His right Hand, and on His Left, one over whom His 
Heart broke in vain. 

Apart from his sins, the youngest of the Apostles 
must have displayed some natural tendencies which 
needed training and sanctification. For one thing, he 
seems to have been very dramatic. It is true that all 
our evidence is drawn from his Gospel, and there this 
temperamental peculiarity is found consecrated to the 
sacred purpose of portraying the Tragedy of Divine 
Love. We notice the ''telling brevity and abruptness" 
of such sentences as 'Tt was night'' ; ''Then saith He 
unto them, I am''; "Now Barabbas was a robber." 
Akin to this characteristic is his love of contrasts, ex- 
emplified in his hanging side by side his portraits of 
incredulous Nicodemus, the Sanhedrist of Jerusalem, 
and the believing Samaritaness, a heretic of a degraded 
country village. We may well suppose that such 
qualities of style as these, which the aged Apostle has 
completely at his command, and uses for the enrich- 
ment of his Gospel, indicate that, at his conversion, 
he might easily have become the victim of a tempera- 
ment. But under the guidance of his Master's Spirit 
he learned to force these natural characteristics into 
Christ's service. 

It is profoundly significant that St. John nowhere 
calls himself the "disciple whom Jesuls loved," until 
his description of the evening before Calvary. Evi- 
dently it had required three years of fellowship with 



32 SAINT JOHN 



Incarnate God tO' develop him into a soul upon which 
Jesus could look with that special regard. 

Come amU %>zz 

The idea with which St. John and St. Andrew ap- 
proached our Lord wasi that He was one of the rabbis, 
for in fact He seems to have worn clothing like theirs. 
No doubt, they thought, He is traveling, and we will 
discover His permanent abiding place, so that later we 
can visit Him. and hear His teaching. ''Rabbi,'' they 
said, ''Where dwellest Thou?'' But Christ's love was 
far too eager to brook a delay, "Come at once," is the 
forceful meaning of His words, "and you shall see." 
It is always timely to seek our Lord. Often and over 
He said that "Llis time had not yet comxC," but this was 
never in reference to the approach of a human soul for 
spiritual aid. It was never inopportune to see such a 
one no matter how inconveniently the interview in- 
truded upon His retirement. 

The phrase w4th which Jesus thus welcomed His 
first disciples seems' to have had a really hackneyed 
rabbinical use. It was the new content with which 
He filled it, which made it so gracious and so appeal- 
ing. The rabbis would select some hard point in the 
Law, and, after displaying the apparently insoluble 
difficulty of the problem, would then invite their dis- 
ciples to hear their subtle elucidation, saying, "Come 
and see." Theirs was a religion which centered around 
the Book of the Law, but His disciples must find in, 
Him the very Lleart of their piety. 

For the Kingdom of Heaven in the world began 
with the introduction to the Kino; of these two first 



SAINT JOHN 33 



citizens. In this it is perfectly different, not only from 
the Jewish Church, but from every human institution. 
What would a newly-arrived immigrant think, if he 
were told that his naturalization would involve his be- 
coming an intimate friend of our President! But in 
the State of Salvation it is of the essence of our citizen- 
ship that each subject should come to know his Lord 
personally. Aliens may know about Him, but we 
know Him and by faith see Him (xiv: 19). 

3fej3Uja 9^monc X^t ^onjs of ^en 

These first disciples of our Blessed Lord were very 
different from one another. St. Peter was eager and 
impetuous, while St. Philip was slow and cautious and 
disposed to demand sensible evidence before forming 
a conclusion. St. Andrew was the very type of the 
active missionary ; St. Nathanael displays the qualities 
of the contemplative. Yet over all these hearts our 
Lord established His dominion. It was as if He would, 
from the beginning, disprove that modern excuse for 
unbelief, the assertion that there are temperaments to 
which He cannot appeal. 

His methods of attracting them, moreover, were 
remarkably varied. St. John and St. Andrew were 
drawn to Him by the life and preaching of a holy 
priest, St. John Baptist. St. Peter was called by his 
own brother, and we may observe in passing that it is 
not always easy for one to be evangelized by a relative. 
Nathanael, finally, was brought to his Lord by a 
friend. Jesus has, in truth, as many methods of gain- 
ing human hearts as there are different individuals in 
the world' — and no two people are alike. 



34 SAIN7 JOHN 



Once more, let us notice that onir Lord had a special 
way of treating each new follower, ffis first words to 
St. John and St. Andrew were: ''What seek ye?'' 
And thus He made them examine their own motives in 
coming to Him. But He, Himself, searched the hearts 
of St. Peter and St. Nathanael. Furthermore,- He im- 
plied that He disapproved of the natural man He saw 
in St. Peter, but promised him that Simon, son of 
Jonah, should, for all his instability, become Cephas, a 
stone hewn out of the side of the Rock of Ages. On 
the other hand, He approved of the guilelessness He 
found in St. Nathanael and promised him the vision 
of his Lord's enthronement among the holy angels 
(i: 51). It muist have required supreme trust in Him 
to keep them content, from the first, with such varied 
treatment as this ; and cannot we, like them, confide in 
the infinite love of our Saviour to deal with each of 
us as is best for him? . 

®l&e JFourtl^ 2KKeefe xn 3ltifaent* Read St. John i : 45-51 

W^z iFottttS fe^un&ap fn a&bent 

IBible ^tutig anti g^eHitation 

The few rapid strokes by which St. John portrays 
for us St. Nathanael, reveal that he was particularly 
notable for a habit of reading and dwelling upon the 
Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. His inti- 
mate friend could describe Christ to him sufficiently 
as He ''of Whom Moses wrote, and the prophets.'' 
The very form of the sentence seems to imply that the 
two had often studied together the Old Testament 
teaching about Christ. As an ancient writer para- 
phrases St Philip's announcement, it was as if he had 
said, ''We have found Whom we sought, Whom we 



SAINT JOHN 35 



looked forward to having, Whom the Scriptures prom- 
ised/' There under the fig tree, in his garden, he 
seems, at the time he was called, to have been medi- 
tating upon Jacob's vision of the angels ascending to 
Jehovah in Heaven and returning to earth laden with 
His gifts for men. But when would the time arrive 
that Jehovah Himself would come down and save His 
people ! '■ 

Thus he had, through devout pondering on the H0I7 
Scripture, become a member of that little group who 
''looked for redemption in Israel" ; and he had laid 
hold on the deeper truths about Messiah revealed in 
the Old Testament, so that he was not constrained by 
the contemporary Jewish traditions. ''Search and 
look," said the rabbis, "for out of Galilee ariseth no 
prophet." But by prayer and loving study of the 
Bible, St. Nathanael had gained the power to transcend 
such prejudices. "The remnant of Israel" to which he 
belonged, holy souls who waited for Christ to be their 
Consolation, were throughout His ministry, a source 
of great happiness and courage to His sacred Heart. 
Some of them waited upon their Infant Lord in the 
Cave of the Nativity; and in the Temple, in the midst 
of His struggles with the Pharisees, He remembered 
them^ with joy and spoke of them as the sheep who had 
not heard the voice of the false shepherds (x:5, 8). 
Thus St. Nathanael was taught by meditation on Holy 
Writ to be indeed what his name implies, "the gift of 
God," to our Lord. And, just as truly, each one who 
accepts the pure Catholic Religion, without addition 
or subtraction, is a joy to Him, and must be only the 
more loyal to Him if the whole body of the faithful 
is small. 

Christ richly rewarded our Saint's study and medi- 



36 SAINT JOHN 



tation, and the desire for Him which was developed by 
these means. Not only did He call him to be an Apos- 
tle, but so eager was the Divine Love which responded 
to his door human love, that It outran St. Philip and 
was already drawing his heart to his Master before his 
friend arrived. ''Before that Philip called thee," Jesus 
said unto him: ''When thou wast under the fig tree, 
I saw thee/' Thus He ever loves to see His people at 
meditation and to satisfy the desire for Himself which 
it stimulates and develops. . 

W^z iFottttS apontrap (n a&bent 

Hofae Congiecratejei HDbgftacIc ja 

St. Philip was from Bethsaida, which was the city 
also of Ss. Andrew and Peter and of St. Philip's 
brother, St. James. They must have grown up, there- 
fore, in one of the most wicked cities of Palestine, 
upon which our gentle Saviour pronounced a terrible 
judgment because of its iniquity (St. Matt, xi : 21 f.). 
They became Apostles and Saints in spite of their en- 
vironment, and the same may be said of all the Twelve 
who were faithful. One only of the Apostolic Band 
was not a Galilean, and that was Judas Iscariot, whose 
surname shows that he came from Kerioth, a suburb 
of Jerusalem. Every spiritual privilege and opportu^ 
nity must have been his from his boyhood, yet he be- 
came the traitor and, by suicide, went to his own place. 

Jesus distinguished St. Philip by an extraordinary- 
mark of devotion to him. He journeyed into Gailee, 
probably to Bethsaida, in order to find him; and this 
fact is the more remarkable because it is not recorded 
of any other that our Lord sought him out. Perhaps, 
however, we discover the reason for this unique voca- 



SAINT JOHN 37 



tion when we read that Christ had only to say to him: 
** Follow Me," and he immediately followed. He seems 
to have made it appropriate for our Lord to bestow 
upon him this great favor of calling him in Person, 
by the way he had transcended the obstacle of his evil 
surroundings, and probably had even learned from 
them a greater hatred of the world and a deeper real- 
ization of his need of God. 

And not only was he obliged thus to convert the 
environment of the wicked Bethsaida to his spiritual 
ends, but he must needs consecrate a temperament 
w^hich was' remarkably hostile to supernatural truth, 
for he was one of those people who are disposed to 
believe nothing except what they can see. Once our 
Lord said to His Apostles that in a true sense they 
already knew the Father and had seen Him, and 
Philip, characteristically, answered Him, ''Lord, show 
us the Father and it sufficeth us.'' But not only did he 
overcome his natural antipathy to belief in the invisible 
things of God, but he actually turned his temperament 
to account. For, when he had himself become satis- 
fied that Jesus was the Messiah, he ever after went 
about inviting people to '*come and see" our Lord and 
be themselves convinced of His unseen Divinity. He 
knew that Jesus had perfectly satisfied him, and recog- 
nizing the difficulty of his Master's task in converting 
persons of his sort, he hit upon this plan of leading 
them to see the evidence they demanded in the patent 
holiness and miracles of Christ. With his example 
before us, we can never charge our environment or 
our natural dispositions with our unbelief or lack of 
devotion. Let us rather consecrate the circumstances 
of our daily life and make them help us to be more 
perfect servants of Jesus. 



38 SAINT JOHN 



31 i^olg influence 

St. Andrew is chiefly remarkable, in St. John's 
sketch of him, for the influence he exerted upon his 
brethern. His very first notable act is to bring his own 
brother to Jesus. In Church history, he is nothing, 
one might almost say, and St. Peter is much, yet would 
there have been a St. Peter, except for the holy influ- 
ence of St. Andrew ? 

He was one of the first two disciples, and we would 
have supposed that Christ would have included him 
among the three who constituted the innermost group 
of his Apostles. But he was passed over and St. 
Peter and St. James, the next two who came to our 
Lord, were chosen. No doubt Divine V/isdom knew 
that it was best to leave him to exercise his blessed 
helpfulness among the rank and file of the disciples. 
Prominence would have marred or perhaps taken away 
St. Andrew's opportunity. 

Presently, however, v/e see that through his exer- 
cising influence with men for Christ, he speedily gained 
influence with Christ for men. The lad with the loaves 
and fishes found in him a mediator through whom he 
ventured to make his humble offering (vi:8f.). 
Again, when the Greeks came desiring to see Jesus, 
they approached St. Philip, whose name was Greek, 
but he begged St. Andrew to intercede for them with 
Christ (xii: 20 flf.). Finally, when the central circle 
of the Apostolic College wished to obtain from their 
Master a revelation as to the time when the Temple 
would be destroyed, they seem to have asked St. An- 
drew to assist them (St. Mark xiii : 3). Let us, then, 
remember that this great servant of our King* still by 



SAINT JOHN 39 



his prayers in Heaven seeks his brother in the world, 
and has a mighty influence on behalf of his clients 
with the Judge of all. ^ 

Wc}Z a^noelis anU tj)e ^on of ^an 

It is thought that our Lord's reception of St. Na- 
thanael took place near Bethel and Peniel, both of 
which were scenes of Jacob's visions of Jehovah sur- 
rounded by angels (Gen. xxviii: 12-22; xxxii : 2, 24- 
30). If so, Jesus has taken advantage of this fact 
about the locality to facilitate His hearers' acceptance 
of a very great revelation about Himself. For, as the 
entire host of the angels met Jacob at Mahanaim, or as 
it is also called Peniel, and a Man was in their midst 
Whom the Patriarch recognized as God, so, Christ 
promised them, they would some day see Him, the Son 
of Man, w^th the whole company of His angels doing 
Him homage. ''Hereafter,'' He said with His doubly 
solemn 'Verily, verily," "ye shall see Heaven open, and 
the angels of God ascending and descending upon the 
Son of Man." 

But it is Bethel which is evidently more in our 
Lord's view. Now, Bethel means the "Plouse of God." 
Jacob, after his vision there set up the stone, which 
had been his pillow, for an altar, whereon he after- 
ward offered sacrifice to Jehovah. In fact, Bethel was 
a church, but it was an empty church, out of which 
the angels were ascending to Jehovah in Heaven. In 
contrast with it, Jesus teaches that our House of God 
is to have Jehovah Incarnate present in it. But there 
is only one way in which this is possible, for our Lord 
is present as Man, on earth, only in the Blessed Sacra- 



40 SAINT JOHN 



ment. Therefore, He meant that, when the words of 
consecration have been said, we are with our spiritual 
eyes to behold the whole host of Heaven "descending 
upon the Son of Man/' 

It is remarkable that in the only two passages of St. 
John's Gospel and Epistles which speak of angels, he 
represents them as a guard of honor about the Body 
of Qirist (cp. XX : 12). Their ardent, perfect devo- 
tion to our Lord was a great example and stimulus to 
the ApostoHc Church (cp. Heb. xii: 22; i Cor. xi: 10; 
I St. Tim. v:2i). Ought not we, also, to recollect 
that ^'angels and archangels and all of the company of 
heaven" with us adore the Son of Man as He comes 
upon our altar? When He said ''the angels of God,'' 
speaking of them collectively. He meant that all the 
nine choirs would be ''descending" upon Him in the 
New Bethel. Let us, with holy envy, imitate that un- 
selfish love of theirs which keeps them ever worship- 
ing Him in the Divine Mysteries, although they can- 
not receive Him in Holy Communion. And let us, on 
our part, reveal to them the manifold fruits of the 
Blessed Sacrament in and through us ; for they can 
never know the power of Christ in its most miraculous 
operations, unless we, each one, display the conquest 
of His grace over our self-will. 



%\t iFourtJ tCStttjStiap in a&bent 

%.\}t Consecration of tj^e Son of ^an 

St. John reveals to us that all three Persons of the 
Blessed Trinity participated in the consecration of 
Jesus' Manhood. At the moment of Its creation, the 
Father consecrated Him (x: 36). When the Divine 



SAINT JOHN 41 



Dove descended upon Him at His Baptism, this was 
the operation of the Holy Ghost upon His Human 
Soul, creating a still more overflowing measure of 
grace. Finally, just the night before He suffered, He 
consecrated Himself to be a very Sacrament of Love 
for the offering He was about to make of Himself 
upon the Cross (xvii: 19). By this threefold conse- 
cration He was filled with all the blessings which 
Divine Wisdom foresaw we would need for our salva- 
tion. 

''He was full of grace and truth.'' Grace is the 
choicest fruit of Divine Love, because it not only 
saves the soul into which it is infused, but imparts to 
it a beauty so like that of God that it becomes the 
object of the angels' wonder and love. The fulness 
of truth which He brought replaced pathetic uncer- 
tainty, even about our immortality, which was known 
even to the saints of the Old Testament but imperfect- 
ly (cp. 2 St. Tim. i: 10). At His Incarnation, more- 
over, the Father gave into his Human Hand dominion 
over all thins, that He might administer them for His 
people (iii : 35). One more blessing was the gift to us 
in Jesus of the fulness of life (x: 10). 

Two great truths appear from this Divine largess 
so prodigally poured out to us in the consecrated 
Humanity of Christ: (a) Our salvation must be of 
exceeding importance in God's eyes. By holding us 
worth the price of His Son's Life, He challenges us to 
prize ourselves at as dear a rate, and not to sell out 
for some paltry bauble of Satan, (b) It is the nature 
of love to communicate itself and this is as true of 
Divine Charity in us as in God. Let us then hear Him 
saying to each one of us, **I will bless thee, and thou 
shalt be a blessing" (Gen. xii \2), 



42 SAINT JOHN 



CStf0tma0 (Ebe 

€j)ri}5t*fBi JFsfaorite WiXlz for J^imiseU 

After Jesus had been called by others the Lamb of 
God, the Son of God, the Messiah, and the theocratic 
King of Israel, and had revealed Himself to be ''God 
only begotten Who is in the Bosom of the Father,'' 
none of these magnificent titles of humanity and even 
Deity did He prefer for Himself, but the simple, hum- 
ble phrase, ''Son of Man." He loved this greatly, as 
appears from the fact that He used it of Himself eighty 
times in the Gospels. 

In marked contrast with this custom of our Saviour, 
is the manner in which all the Evangelists and sacred 
writers entirely avoid calling Christ the Son of Man. 
Naturally, they objected to applying to Him a title 
which had hardly any reference to the messiah in the 
Psalms and prophecies. In the Old Testament it sig- 
nifies the humility and weakness of man. Thus the 
Psalmist speaks of the *'son of man whom God has 
made a little lower than the angels" (Ps. viii: 5) ; and 
God addresses Ezekiel by this same phrase, in order to 
remind him that he shares the frailties of his fellow- 
Israelites (ii: I, 3, 6, etc.). Inevitably, it seemed to 
those lovers of our Lord, the saints who surrounded 
Him, that ''Son of Man" was too poor and lowdy a 
designation for the Son of God. 

But why did our Lord prefer to call Himself "the 
vSon of Man"? It was because this title oroclaimed His 
essential kinship with every micmber of our race. It 
imnlie^- what St. John teaches in another form when 
he says that the Word became flesh, that is, that God 
the Son took all humanity. Both sexes, all the five 



SAINT JOHN 43 



families of mankind, and all generations share in His 
Human Nature. This is why we find Him displaying 
the moral qualities of the perfect woman together 
with the characteristics of the finest and truest gentle- 
man. It explains to us why Jesus belongs to every 
people and age. It shows us, too, that He is the near- 
est and dearest of all, to each one of us. For to each 
He is as the Eldest Son. , 

3 

Wc)Z ^on of (Soli i\)Z Hober of SDur Kace 

Jesus proved Himself to be the infallible, and most 
loving, Interpreter of our race. We have already 
found Him looking into the hearts of men and read- 
ing them with perfect insight and infinite charity. 
His immediate appreciation of St. Nathanael is, how- 
ever, particularly beautiful, because it stands in con- 
trast with what seems to have been the latter's failure, 
at first, to appreciate Him. Cana, where St. Nathanael 
lived (xxi: 2), was very near Nazareth, and St. Philip, 
in calling his friend, refers to Christ by the name for 
Him which was used among the people of His home 
village, ''J^sus the Son of Joseph." Apparently, both 
men knew our Lord, but St. Nathanael had not rightly 
interpreted Him, or he could never have said, ''Can 
there any good thing come out of Nazareth T Yet at 
that very moment, our Lord *^saw'' into his heart of 
hearts and was dwelling upon the virtue for which he 
was remarkable, his guilelessness. For Jesus Christ, 
Whom we so often misunderstand and undervalue, 
always accepts us at our best. 

Jesus is the perfect Man. All talent and all genius 
found their highest perfection in that Human Mind, 



44 SAINT JOHN 



Which was tinited to Deity, and received by reflection 
frorrii the Divine Person all knowledge which It could 
have and remain Human. Moreover, He was Man and 
had in Himself the perfection of humanity. ''AH that 
truly belongs to every individual in the race," said Bp. 
Westcott, ''belongs to Him.'' Thus He possessed the 
genius of the poet, the painter and the musician, 
and that in a degree only less than infinite because of 
the essential limitations of His Human Soul. And 
every truth of science and every inspiration of human 
artists is an adumbration from the Mind of Jesus. For 
He is "the true Light which lighteth every man" and 
is continually "coming into" the world with the gifts 
of civilization. 

Jesus made one proud claim upon His people because 
He was the Son of God. It vv^as that He was entitled 
to work for men on the Sabbath. "My Father worketh 
even until now," He insisted, ''and I work" (vri/, 
A. V. Marg.). He meant that He and His Father were 
accustomed to labor for men without respite, through- 
out the seven days of the week. Time was, v/hen God 
took His Sabbath's rest, for we read that, before the 
fall of man He rested on the seventh day (Gen. ii. 2). 
But when His children turned against Him, struck 
hands with His mortal foe, and spoiled the good world 
which He had created. He renounced His Sabbath re- 
pose, because our race in its weakness v/ould need 
His utmost Providence. How can we love and bless 
God enough for making Himself the servant of His 
fallen creatures, and for coming into our world to 
reveal the dear truth of His sleepless, infinite love for 
us! 



SAINT JOHN 45 



Dunne t|)e flDctabe of Clbrwtmajaf* Read St. John ii : i-n 

^onjssecration €^|)rou0|) t|)e don of ^an 

The first miracle wrought by our Lord was in no 
sense an impromptu occurrence. He evidently waited, 
at St. Nathanael's house it seems, for the occasion of 
the wedding, in order by the ''sign'' to manifest His 
glory, and gain the faith of His new disciples. The 
miracle which followed, after three days, displayed, 
with almost unparalleled clearness, our Lord's power 
to convert very inferior material into means which He 
can use for the purpose of His perfect wisdom and 
love. He could change v/ater into wine, and after- 
wards He could consecrate wine to be the Sacrament 
of His Blood. In one way, it was a work of still 
greater power v/hen He changed passionate Stephen 
into loving Stephen, since the free will of the man 
might have resisted Him as material elements could 
not. 

The martyr whom we commemorate to-day, is the 
only person in the New Testament except our Lord 
Himself, who ever spoke of Him, as the Son of Man 
(Acts vii: 56). St. Stephen had been inveighing 
against the perverse unbelief of the Jews. ''Ye stiff- 
necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears," was his 
terrible rebuke, ''Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost." 
His denunciation of them was, indeed, so severe that 
his words, in the expressive verb of the original, "sawed 
through their hearts," and "they gnashed on him' with 
their teeth." It was then that Jesus in Heaven ap- 
peared to His servant with such marks of His own 
Passion in His glorified Body, that St. Stephen could 



46 SAINT JOHN 



not but recognize in Him his Fellow, the Son of Man, 
Who had preceded him in passing through the agony 
of persecution and martyrdom. The effect upon the 
holy Deacon was immediately to make him wonder- 
fully gentle and loving toward his murderers. 

He was led out to die at the usual place of Jewish 
executions, which seems to have been near Calvary. 
Certainly, St. Stephen was reminded by his vision, if 
not by the locality, of the way in which our Saviour 
had endured His Cross. As the stones fell thick and 
fast upon him, he imitated the first and last words of 
his crucified Master. As Christ had said, ''Father, for- 
give them, for they know not what they do,'' so he 
**cried with a loud voice, Lord lay not this sin to their 
charge/' And as our Lord had, at the last, commended 
His Spirit into His Father's hands, so His servant 
prayed saying, ''Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Thus 
was the best wine saved until the last, and then con- 
secrated for Jesus' great purpose of love. For Saul, 
who was keeping the witnesses' clothes, and by that 
very office signifying that he assumed the chief re- 
sponsibility for the deed, was a "chosen vessel" of our 
Lord (Acts ix:i5). By Stephen's saintly death the 
first step was taken toward filling him from the mar- 
tyr's soul with the precious vintage of Divine Love, 
that in him it miglit be borne unto the Gentiles (cp. 
Acts ix: 5, where St. Stephen's last words are the 
"goads"). May Jesus so fill this stony water-pot in 
my breast with His best wine that at least one other 
soul may become His chosen vessel brimming with love 
for Him! 



SAINT JOHN M 



Wc)Z aTonisecration of flDur 2HiII}3 

In the training of our Lord's youngest Apostle, the 
great necessity was that He should, teach him to con- 
secrate his will so that he could wait calmly until his 
Master's hour should come. St. John must learn to 
"tarry the Lord's leisure," and to fulfill the Divine 
purpose for him in every detail throughout his long 
life. He muist know how to go forward, step by step, 
deliberately, yet always with prompt obedience to the 
will of his Lord. In this extraordinarily difficult les- 
son, our Lord was his perfect Preceptor. Long before 
He declared in words the guiding principle of the 
Beloved Disciple's life (xxi: 22 f.). He instructed him 
by His own example. For it has been truly said that 
men feel the sorest strain about an enterprise when 
they first begin it, and when they finish. At those two 
times, they retire into strict seclusion, perhaps admit- 
ting a very few intimates, and there, behind locked 
doors, feverishly, sleeplessly, labor and plan. But our 
Lord, at both these crucial times, in what was infinitely 
the greatest enterprise ever undertaken in the world, 
attended festival meals. For He inaugurated His Min- 
istry at the wedding feast of Cana, and prefaced its 
conclusion on the Cross by the supper in his honor at 
Bethany (xii: if.). The young Evangelist could not 
have had more impressive lessons in that perfect, calm 
consecration of his will, which in fact he displays 
more and more during the threescore years of his life 
after Pentecost. 

The narrative of this miracle is peculiar to the 
Fourth Gospel, and evidently it had impressed itself 
profoundly upon St. John. Often and often, during 



48 SAINT JOHN 



the years of his life with the Blessed Virgin after 
Qirist committed her to his charge they had talked it 
over, and she had supplied those details which had 
been known only to her. For no doubt, this was an 
epoch-making day in his life, when the water of his 
natural weakness was changed to the precious wine of 
a great love for Jesus, and he consecrated himself 
wholly to his Lord. It is this spiritual truth, we may 
suppose, which underlies the old legend that the w^ed- 
ding at Cana was his own, and that after the miracle, 
he forsook his bride to follow Christ. He did indeed, 
on this occasion break, once for all, many natural 
bonds, in order to give himself wdthout reservation to 
his Master. 

There is a proof that St. John at this marriage made 
a new and complete dedication to Jesus, in the fact 
that for the first time he tells us, ''His disciples be- 
lieved on Him.'' For the original words mean, literal- 
ly, that they ''believed into Him." The expression oc- 
curs frequently in the Fourth Gospel, and always 
means a faith which involves entire surrender. The 
aged Evangelist must have remembered with a quick- 
ened heart that day on which he had first trusted his 
Saviour absolutely. Let us celebrate his festival by 
''believing into'' Jesus with fresh and more perfect 
consecration of our every thought to His will. 

W^t l^ol? 3nnoant0* 2Dap 

Wc^t Hl^ualitiee of ^^iW% &obins I^otoer 

The first miracle shows, among other blessed truths 
about Christ, that His interest and sympathy extend 
to every age of our human life. He is as really en- 



SAINT JOHN 49 



gaged with the wedding of these young people as, in 
other connections, He was occupied in blessing little 
children and in teaching old Nicodemus. Probably 
the three feasts immediately following Christmas are 
meant to suggest this same truth, that Jesus has infi- 
nite love for old and young — for the baby Innocents, 
and for St. Stephen in the bloom of young manhood, 
and for St. John. His loving power touches our life 
at every point. To-day He is blessing the marriage of 
these simple Galilean peasants; within the week He 
will be purifying public worship at Jerusalem. Let us 
strive to realize, on this feast of the Holy Innocents, 
that no human life is so young, or obscure, or poor, 
that He does not long to bless and sanctify it wholly. 

Our Saviour's sanctifying grace, moreover, is un- 
merited. The infants, who were slain in His stead 
were, according to the teaching of the Qiurch, not 
only speedily received into Heaven, but were also 
numbered among the greater Saints. St. John seems 
to have them in mind when he speaks of those follow- 
ers of the Lamb in the Church Triumphant who have 
been ** redeemed from among men, being the first fruits 
unto God and to the Lamb'' (Rev. xiv: 4). But they 
were not martyrs in will, nor did their baby souls dis- 
play heroic sanctity. Their place among the Saints, 
therefore, is the gift of God's uncovenanted mercy. 
Yet their beatification was only one more act of His 
gratuitous love for them. He had become incarnate 
in order to save our race v^hen it not only merited 
nothing from Him, but when it deserved damnation. 
He had turned man's very sin into ^. felix culpUy an 
occasion of ineffable blessedness. This Divine Charity 
had first redeemed and then beatified the Infant Mar- 
tyrs of this day. Christ gave them the pure water of 



50 SAINT JOHN 



sanctifying grace in their souls, in anticipation of His 
meritorious Cross, and then converted this into the 
wine of extraordinary sanctity, all for the sole reason 
that He loved them. 

Christ's power for good was prodigal toward others, 
while it left His Humanity unaided. He would not 
turn a stone to a loaf of bread for Himself, but He 
changed water to the most delicious wine for others. 
And' the uncalculating lavishness of His Love is ex- 
emplified by the fact that He made for these poor peas- 
ants about one hundred gallons, of the best vintage. 
In the sam^e characteristic way. He gave to the Holy 
Innocents, in return for one swift stab of pain, over 
perhaps before they perceived it. Heaven and a place 
very near His Throne, forever. How often during my 
whole life has this overflowing Providence of Christ 
poured its benefits upon my soul, simply because I 
permitted Him to bestow His spiritual largess! Shall 
I not show my gratitude to this dear Guest, by fre- 
quently calling Him' to share, not only my sorrows, but 
my feasts? > 

jFfftS 2Dap in X%t (ESrigftma^ flDctafae 

^|)f ^ot^er of %\xi Horn 

This is the only miracle in which the Blessed Virgin 
appears as an actor, except the miracle wrought in her 
by the Holy Ghost when she conceived Christ. So 
great is the economy observed by St. John in his sacred 
narrative, that he would not have referred to her part 
in the providing of the wine, if it had not been very im- 
portant. As we study the miracle, moreover, we see 
that she supplied an absolutely essential element. For, 
in the similar cases, our Lord reveals that there must 



SAINT JOHN 51 



be faith, either in the recipient of the extraordinary 
favor, or in his representative. We find Him saying, 
^'According to your faith be it unto you,'' and, "Thy 
faith hath saved thee'' (St. Matt, ix: 29; St. Luke 
vii: 50). Now the Holy Mother, by becoming the 
intercessor for the young married people, identified 
herself with them, and on their behalf supplied the 
necessary faith. During the thirty years of her life 
with Jesus in Nazareth, she had discerned His Divine 
Power, even while it was hidden beneath the carpen- 
ter's frock so successfully that none others realized 
aught but His perfect holiness. Therefore, when these 
poor folk brought their need to her Son, she confi- 
dently expected Him to supply it, although He could 
do this only by a miracle. When He gently rebuffed 
her, she at once directed that all preparations should 
be made to receive the blessing which she evidently 
felt sure would be granted. She knew not what the 
answer to her prayer would be, but she believed abso- 
lutely that it would be both perfectly righteous and 
Divinely loving. ''Whatsoever He saith unto you," 
she said to the servants, "do it." In this way, she pre- 
sented a wonderfullv true exam.ple of the "orayer of 
faith." 

But not only did she make herself receptive of 
Jesus' benefit as the representative of her poor friends ; 
she also created around her that atmosphere of faith 
which seems to have been so essential wherever our 
Lord was to manifest His power. In Nazareth, which 
was His beloved home, He was hampered by human 
incredulity in using His miraculous power for the peo- 
ple. "He did not many mighty works there because 
of their unbelief" (St. Matt, xiii: 58; St. Mark vi: 
5f.). But the Blessed Virgin so inspired these serv- 



52 SAINT JOHN 



ants with her own faith, that they wiUingly performed 
two apparently useless acts. They filled the six water 
pots to the brim, when there seemed to be no use for 
the water, since all the guests had performed the puri- 
fying ablutions. Then when they were commanded to 
do so, they drew what they must have supposed was 
water to carry it to the banquet in their wine pitchers. 
Few greater examples of unquestioning faith are given 
us in the Gospel than that which was displayed by the 
ready obedience of these servants, and they learned 
their great lesson from the dear Mother of our Lord. 
Yet this episode gives us only one example of the 
"vast" faith which characterized her life. It made her 
willing to become the agent of the Incarnation. And, 
from Jesus' Birth onward, it always spread around her 
the blessed contagion of belief in Him, without which 
He would have come, all-beautiful and perfect as He 
was, into a world of blind men. Shall we not love this 
dear Virgin Mother, and earnestly strive to imitate 
her? . 

3 

&f Jt|) 2Dap in tSe CStistmagf flDctabe 

€|)ri0t*j3 ^Oist (Kfcellcnt Mine 

Our most merciful Saviour has from the first, from 
the time He made Adam out of the earth, been willing 
to use inferior materials to help us. He has given us 
an instance of this characteristic in His condescending 
to employ the water intended for foot-washing and 
ceremonial ablutions as the means for His first great 
miracle. With far greater humility, but of this same 
gracious kind, He assumed the likeness of sinful fiesh 
in His Incarnation. Indeed the Gospel reveals clearly 
and in detail the fact that He so far stooped in taking 



SAINT JOHN 53 



our human nature, that He even willed to be born of 
a family in which had been very great and notorious 
sinners. Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba are the promi- 
nent ancestresses in His genealogy, not Sarah, Rebecca 
and Rachel (St. Matt, i: 3, 5, 6). It seems plain that 
he endured the special mortification of accepting de- 
scent from progenitors who were even notably infe- 
rior, for the purpose of showing that it is His glory 
to take the poorest materials and convert them to the 
noblest and most loving uses. 

Moreover, the wine which He furnished was far 
better than that which had been provided by the host, 
good as this latter probably was. In this particular, 
His miracle is symbolic of the truth that, by the power 
of His sacraments and His example. He imparts to 
His people holiness far superior to the highest develop-- 
ment of character among pagans ancient or modern. 
No doubt it is possible, especially for those who live 
within the sphere of the Church's influence, and benefit 
by the diffused power of Her Gospel, to develop char- 
acter of a very impressive kind, greatly esteemed by 
many who view it. But the humihty, penitence and love 
toward God, which spring from the conviction that 
every thing good in us is wrought solely by the miracle 
of Jesus' power — these essential qualities of the only 
true holiness in this world are found nowhere but in 
the souls of Christians. They spring from the realiza- 
tion that our Saviour has taken these poor stone water- 
jars of our hearts, which were all we had to furnish 
Him, and has filled them with His best wine, His sanc- 
tifying grace. 

Modern writers have attempted to compare our Lord 
with the greatest and noblest human teachers. But 
not only is He superior to them in degree, as is ad- 



54 SAINT JOHN 



mitted on all hands; He is absolutely different from 
them in kind. It has been truly said, that where Soc- 
rates brings an argument to meet an objection, Jesus 
brings a Nature to meet a nature, and a whole Being 
filled with light to meet a whole being that error has 
filled with darkness. In the last analysis, it was not by 
the miracles which Jesus wrought, nor by the Sermon 
on the Mount, that the world has been revolutionized. 
Man's redemption was wrought by the Incarnation and 
Passion of God. Only because Jesus was truly Divine, 
can we believe in His revelations as infallible, and 
trust in His Croiss as the Medicine of the world. It 
was because He was the Incarnate Word that He had 
power to convert the water into wine more delicious 
than that of any human vintage. It is for this same 
reason that His grace avails to change these base 
human elements even into the likeness of Himself. 



Wc}t €Itrf %i Ci^rint Impafteti tt ^en 

St. John's favorite word for miracles appears for the 
first time in the passage before us. The Greek original 
means literally ''signs," and our Evangelist by pre- 
ferring this to all other terms for Christ's ''mighty 
works," emphasizes that side of them in which they 
are especially revelations of His Deity. Of course, the 
Apostle realized that they were used to arrest the 
attention of the people, and start a train of thought 
which would issue at length in faith. But to him, 
already a faithful disciple, they were most of all mani- 
festations of Jesus' Divine glory. 



SAINT JOHN 55 



Now, there was one "sign" which transcended all 
others to the disciples and that was their Master's 
Personal perfection in righteousness and love. In 
daily fellowship with Him, some of them during all 
the ''hidden life'' at Nazareth, they had ''beheld His 
glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father.'' 
The first miracle was, therefore, but another mode in 
which He revealed that same Character of holiness and 
mercy which, perhaps for thirty years, they had known 
and loved. 

If, like these first disciples, we believe "on Jesus," 
or, more literally, "into Jesus," He imparts to us as 
He did to them a share in His Divine glory. Indeed, 
it was His purpose in the Incarnation to bestow His 
glory upon us. There is a beautiful legend which may 
serve as a parable of this truth. When the Incarnate 
Word lay as a little Baby in the manger, an insect, in 
color very like the ground upon which it crawled, per- 
ceived that the beautiful Infant had no gift in His 
Hand. Thereupon, it crept to Him and placed in His 
tiny Palm a poor, faded flower. Then the Holy One, 
smiling, took from the straw of His manger a moon- 
beam and bestowed it upon the earth-worm. Thus, 
the old story concludes, the firefly obtained its little 
lantern. Now we "humans" are, as the very word 
indicates, taken from "humus," the "earth." But God 
has come to us to endow each earth-worm with the 
glory of His Personality, if only we bring Him the 
poor, half-spoiled thing which is our all. "The glory 
which thou hast given me," He said to His Father, "I 
have given them" (xvii: 22). 



56 SAINT JOHN 



W^t Cftcnmci0(0tt 

JFiIIin(s Dur lEeltgion toitf) Hobe 

''And there were set there six water-pots of stone, 
after the manner of the purifying of the Jews/' Each 
guest of the marriage feast had carefully cleansed his 
entire fore-arm with the water, until it dropped from 
his elbows, so that he might be ritually clean for the 
meal. But Divine Love converted what was thus of 
only ceremonial importance into a means of manifest- 
ing His glory and of satisfying human need. The 
miracle, when considered in this way, is quite anal- 
ogous to the method in which our Saviour's charity 
filled the ceremony of His cricumcision with a most 
blessed content. For Him, sinless, and already named 
by the message from the Father (St. Luke i: 41), the 
rite was in itself a mere external ceremony. Yet God's 
dear Son converted it into a wonderful manifestation 
of His glorious love for us. For thus, (a) He, from 
the first, submitted to the ceremonial law for men, with 
perfect obedience, according to His vocation as the 
Perfect Man; (b) He began to undergo the whole 
category of human sufferings, and (c) He endured 
the initial outpouring of His Precious Blood for men. 
We cannot know how many blessings were merited 
for the world by our Lord's circumcision ! 

Our religion may easily become as empty as the six 
water-pots. Let us learn a lesson from the Jews about 
this. For God had made rich provision for teaching 
them the one great lesson of love for Him. Not only 
had He given them His special Presence and blessing 
in His temple, but there were varius devices indicated 
in their Scriptures which were meant to inspire devo- 
tion at every turn in their daily life (Deut. vi:4-io; 



SAINT JOHN 57 



xi: 18-21 ; Num. xv: 37-41). There were the Mezuza 
over the door, and the Tefillin, bound on brow and 
arm at prayer. Both were small metal cases contain- 
ing the following precept of Jehovah : ''Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all 
thy soul and with all thy might ; and these words shall 
be in thy heart/' Furthermore, they were directed to 
wear a fringe on their shawls, called the Zizith, and by 
that token also to remember the supreme command- 
ment of their God to love Him. But in spite of all 
that He could do to kindle devotion in them, He was 
at length compelled to confess that He had failed. 'T 
know you/' said Jesus to the Jews, ''That ye have not 
the love of God in you" (iv:42). 

Shall we not permit our Lord to fill our external 
observances with that heavenly wine which refreshes 
Him to run His course rejoicing, and makes glad the 
hearts of all men about us? (Ps. xix:5; civ: 15). 
Conventional Christianity is as useless to satisfy the 
thirst, either of Christ or of the guests at His banquet 
of love, as were the water-jars in their emptiness. 
May He so fill us with true religion that we shall, 
quite without knowing it, manifest the glory of Jesus 
and add at least a little to the happiness of men. 

jfor t|)e Sebfti 2)ap0 JFoIIotoinB* Read St. John ii : 12-25 

W^t iSDctabr SDa? ot &t. ^ttpj^m 

3[e0U}8' iSeluctance to iir EeiecteH 

From Cana our Lord returned to Nazareth. He 
must have expected that after His thirty years of resi- 
dence there, revealing in every word and act the 
Divine loveliness of His Personality, the Nazarenes, 



58 SAINT JOHN 



at least, would be ready to receive Him with open 
arms as their Messiah. But St. John shows us His 
enforced removal from His old home, because of the 
disastrous outcome of His visit there. We find Him 
journeying down to Capernaum with His entire family 
and His disciples, to find a new home. St. Luke and 
St. Mark both strive to express the bitterness of His 
disappointment, and how reluctant He was to leave 
Nazareth. He knew the sorrow and dereliction 
of the prophet's lot in suffering complete dishonor 
and rejection ''in His own country, and among His 
own kin, and in His own house" (St. Mark vi. : 4; cp. 
St. John iv : 44). So great indeed was His longing to 
help His people at Nazareth, even after they had re- 
warded Him for His first manifestation of Himself as 
their Saviour by trying to murder Him (St. Luke iv : 
29), that He went back to them again, later, hoping 
that He might find them willing to accept Him. But 
again, it was in vain (St. Matt, xiii : 54 ff.). 

In Capernaum, He met another rejection. For, 
while here there was no violence directed against His 
life, they excluded Him from their hearts by indiffer- 
ence and unbelief. Our Lord cries out against the 
stubborn hardness of their infidelity, and sorrowfully 
prophesies that Capernaum shall be cast down to Hell, 
since it is more wicked in its refusal to receive Him 
than even Sodom would have been (St. Matt, xi: 
23 f.). This was one of the cities wherein He wrought 
"most of His mighty works," in order to win the faith 
and repentance of its people (St, Matt. xi:2o), and 
the others thus favored by miracles were in its imme- 
diate neighborhood. St. John describes Jesus' first 
sojourn as continuing ''not many days." The came 
words would be equally descriptive of His determined 



SAINT JOHN 59 



subsequent efforts to evangelize the Capernaites, and 
His continual failure. 

But it was in Jerusalem that this ''Scorn of men and 
Outcast of the people'' found the most relentless re- 
fusal to accept Him as Messiah, and therefore suffered 
the most heart-breaking defeat of His hopes. For this 
was His ancient capital, Holy Zion, which He loved 
above all the cities of the world, and the site of that 
sanctuary of God's presence from which Salvation 
should flow out to all mankind (iv: 22). No wonder, 
then, that He was utterly unwilling to be cast off. 
When He had left the Temple, lest He should be 
attacked and slain before His time, He still retreated 
no farther than into the streets of Jerusalem. Again 
He was compelled to retire before the hatred of His 
enemies, and this time into the countryside without the 
city walls. There He continued teaching and display- 
ing the signs of His love and power, until once more 
the animosity of the Pharisees forced Him to return 
into Galilee (ii : 23 ; iii : 22 ; iv : 1-3) . Does it not 
arouse our indignation and kindle our zeal for Jesus 
when we think of the repeated rejections which He 
suffered from men, when He came to them desiring 
naught but to be admitted into their lives with all the 
blessings of His Kingdom? But even more in 
America today He is excluded from our households, 
our individual lives and even our Churches. Let us 
fling wide the doors and receive Him ! 

V^t deception fif €|)riiit 

If it be true, that we ought to receive Christ for His 
sake, and in reparation to Him for the rebuffs He en- 



60 SAINT JOHN 



dures in the godless world, it is certainly far more true 
that our own souls must have their Saviour for their 
very Center. Capernaum was ''exalted unto Heaven*' 
by His presence within its walls, although it was so 
hostile to Him that it was to be cast down to Hell at 
the Judgment (St. Matt. xi:23f.). How blessed,, 
then, is the soul of a loving Christian, into which 
Christ enters with infinite love and mercy, that He 
may exalt it to Heaven forever! For it has the gift 
of everlasting life, through the continual presence 
within it of its Lord God and of His sanctifying grace 
(i St. John v: 12). 

When St. John speaks of the "J^^^' Passover," he 
implies that there is also a Christian Passover. And, 
indeed, our Saviour Himself referred to Holy Com- 
munion in a way to suggest that it is the Church's 
Pasch. For He said: ''With desire I have desired to 
eat this Passover with you before I suffer." Yet, im- 
mediately. He went on to show by word and act that 
He referred to the Blessed Eucharist, and would not 
receive either the bread or the wine of the Jewish 
rite (St. Luke xxii: 16-20). We may, then, rightly 
claim the dear Christ as "our Passover, sacrificed for 
us." The blood of this Lamb of God is marked upon 
the doors of our senses, that the Angel of Death may 
pass us by. And in each Communion, we consume 
Him wholly (Ex. xii: 3-8). 

When St. John saw our Lord cleansing the Temple, 
and the mortal hatred which He thus occasioned in the 
Jews, he remembered the prophecy about the Messiah : 
"The zeal of thine house will eat Me up/' Our Lord's 
intense earnestness showed that He was consumed 
with desire for the purity of divine worship. Then 
with what love, with what striving after perfection^ 



SAINT JOHN 61 



ought we to approach the Holy of Holies. There is 
indeed the Mercy Seat and the blessed sacramental 
Presence of the Lamb of God, Who eagerly seeks the 
opportunity of lifting our souls to eternal heights. 

W^t flDctabt SDftp ot X\t ^olp 3nnDcent0 

Wc}t spirit of Di!9ciple0|)i|) 

It seems that St. John made his final decision to 
accept Christ as his Master at Cana. This is one reason 
for his not recording the call of the four fishermen, 
SS. Peter, Andrew, James and John, at the lakeside 
(St. Matt. iv:i8ff.; St. Mark i:i6flf.; St. Luke v: 
i-ii). Probably, while our Lord was at Nazareth, 
He sent the Apostles to their homes for a period of 
mature reflection before they made their final response. 
The summons, then, came after Christ's removal to 
Capernaum, and before the first purifying of the Tem- 
ple. Little stress is laid by the first three Gospels on 
this call of the Beloved Disciple. He evidently obeyed 
immediately, as if he had but awaited a signal. There 
is a second reason, however, for the entire silence of 
Evangelist wished to avoid describing the occasion 
the Fourth Gospel as to this incident. Our humble 
upon which he left all for Christ's sake. 

He was, indeed, at the very height of his prosperity, 
that day. St. Mark indicates that his boat was an 
unusually large one, for he tells us that the father, 
Zebedee, with his sons and servants, was mending the 
fish-nets, not on the shore, as was the custom with the 
small owners, but on the deck of the vessel. It had, 
moreover, a hired crew besides the owners. St. Luke 
contributes the information that the haul of fish was 



62 SAINT JOHN 



of unparalleled greatness. Yet, St. John without a 
thought for the extraordinary catch or for the afflu- 
ence he was leaving, joyfully accepted poverty and 
suffering at Jesus' side. Nor did he fall into that snare 
of complacent self-satisfaction which always besets us 
when we sacrifice anything for our Lx)rd. The spirit 
of these four Apostles was rather one of fear, because 
they realized that they Vv^ere unvv^orthy of fello\vship 
with Christ. Thus we find Him, for the first time on 
this occasion, commanding them 'Tear not.'' It was 
to become the commonest of all His precepts, in His 
spiritual direction of them. 

St. Peter, many 3^ears afterward, shows us that only 
reliance upon Divine help gave them confidence to ac- 
cept our Lord's invitation. For thus he urges us to 
trust as he had done: ''The God of all grace, Who 
hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus 
. . . shall Himself perfect you," or literally, "mend 
your nets" (i St. Pet. v:io). The broken fish-nets 
upon the deck of Zebedee's vessel, and those lying* upon 
the shore rent by the miraculous catch, were symbolic 
to them of their own imperfect souls. But with them 
v/as a Divine Net-mender, the God of grace, who 
would, with infinite patience and skill, knit the torn 
spiritual web. 

Cl?e Ceming of t|)f ©urifirr 

Our gentle Saviour came to His Father's House, at 
just the time and in exactly the way which would 
make His purifying discipline least trying to the Jews. 
That very year, the sanctuary had been completed, 



SAINT JOHN 63 



after forty-six years' expenditure of labor and treas- 
ure. Surely, they would be expecting the fulfillment 
of Malachi's prophecy (iii: 1-3). Surely the Angel of 
the Covenant, now for many centuries expected, would 
come at last to purify for Himself this magnificent 
House which His people had built to His glory. For 
how could God consummate the work of His servants 
with a greater outpouring of His blessing and His 
glory, than by Himself coming to dwell in it? 

Probably, the very hour chosen by Christ for His 
visitation was one in which the hearts of His people 
should have been full of the desire to be clean, for it 
was the time when all leaven was scrupulously cleansed 
away from every house in Jerusalem. The Jews would 
almost inevitably reason that if the symbol of sin must 
be put away from their dwellings before the anniver- 
sary of the ancient Passover, surely the House of God 
ought to be cleansed from profanation, avarice and 
hypocrisy, now, when God had actually come to be 
with His people. 

But not only was our Lord's chosen time of visiting 
the Temple that which would make the cleansing 
easiest to bear, but His words and acts were marvel- 
ously gentle and loving. His scourge was made only 
of rushes, probably taken from the pavement of the 
court and twisted together. Moreover, He seems not 
to have struck the men even with this fragile whip, but 
only the cattle, for the exact meaning of the original 
is: ''He drove them all, both the sheep and the oxen, 
out of the Temple.'' And He could hardly have used 
milder words of rebuke. The money changers were 
charging an exorbitant per cent for exchanging the 
foreign money, brought by the Jews of the Dispersion, 
into the shekel of the Sanctuary. The vendors of 



64 SAINT JOHN 



doves represented a kind of trust which had monopo- 
lized these birds and was charging the very poor 
double for them. Hardly any evil-doing would have 
aroused our Lord more than the iniquity of these men, 
yet He says no more than that they have turned His 
Father's House into a market-place. Is it not a won- 
derful manifestation of Jesus' tender mercy, that He 
even condescended to be tactful and gentle with His 
miserable, sinful creatures? 



Wc)t €entilf jB in 3feifUji* X^t^xi 

Why did our Lord come to cleanse His Temple with 
a scourge in His hand, if His intention was to win His 
people by gentleness? It was because the rabbinic 
writings prophesied that Messiah would appear with a 
scourge for the punishment of evildoers. In His great 
love for the Jews, He willed to adopt even this, their 
self-chosen sign of Messianic authority. But there was 
one way in which He diverged from the fulfillment of 
their prophecy, if we take this from their viewpoint. 
They assumed that the scourge would be for the Gen- 
tiles, and naught but rewards, or rather payment due, 
for themselves. Their resentment was aroused by the 
fact that He drove their cattle, cheats and extortioners, 
out of the temple court. They had by no means real- 
ized the meaning of that plain prophecy that judg- 
ment would begin at the House of God (Mai. iii: 1-4; 
I St. Pet. iv: 17). As for the Gentiles, His Justice as 
well as His Mercy required that they should be ''beaten 
with few stripes, for they knew not" (St. Luke xii: 

48). 



SAINT JOHN 65 



In His Heart there was, indeed, a plan of perfect 
wisdom and love, for including the heathen among His 
elect, although He would not increase the hostility of 
the Jews by speaking of it then. But at the second 
cleansing of the temple, when the time of the Gentiles 
was at hand, He felt that charity no longer forbade 
Him to reveal His purpose for them. ''My house,'' he 
proclaimed, ''shall be called the house of prayer/c^r all 
the nations'' (St. Mark xi: 17). We in our poor, sav- 
age Scythian ancestors, were then, and had been from 
the first, at the very center of His design to redeem 
the world. 

If we needed a proof that at the first purifying of 
His House, our Saviour had before Him the inclusion 
of the Gentiles into His Church, it would be supplied 
by His answer to the Jews' demand for a sign. "De- 
stroy the Temple," he said to them, ''and in three days 
I will raise it up." The "sign" He would give would 
be a double one. They would "destroy" the "Temple" 
of His Body, and on Easter He would raise It up 
again. And on that same Good Friday, at the very 
moment of His death upon the Cross, the magnificent 
sanctuary would be symbolically destroyed by the rend- 
ing of the great blue veil before the Holy of Holies. 
In the Divine plan, moreover, the religion of the Old 
Covenant would go down to the grave with the temple 
in which it centered, to be raised again in Christ on the 
third day as the Catholic Church. May the dear 
Saviour of the world speedily complete His plan for 
our nation by incorporating the fifty million American 
heathen into His Mystical Body! 



66 SAINT JOHN 



Seconli SDap in tfie jSDctafae ot (Epipfianp 

^|)e ©enaltp of £Dnce Kefectinc Ctjrijst 

There is a great warning for us in the deterioration 
of the Jews after they rejected our Saviour at the first 
purification of the temple. For there is a marked con- 
trast between His gentle words at this time, and the 
awful severity of His condemnation at the second 
cleansing (St. Mark xi:i5ff.). Now, He speaks of 
the sanctuary as His Father's House, but then He must 
pronounce that most fearful sentence of final derelic- 
tion: ''Your House is left unto you desolate" (St. 
Matt, xxiii: 38). So the temple of a soul from which 
He has departed, because it has cast Him out by sin, 
passes desolate from His Father's blessed ownership 
into that of the miserable self. 

God's ancient House had been converted into a 
''house of merchandise" v/hen our Lord first came to 
it. It had become "a den of robbers" at His second vis- 
itation. So, it is also with one who is rebuked by Jesus 
for deserting the attitude of prayer and using his God- 
given powers for worldly and selfish ends. If he even 
once disregards the rebuke he may go on from bad to 
worse, until he becomes hardened and bold in robbing 
God. 

At the first cleansing the dear Christ came as a Son 
into His Father's House, while at the last, He had to 
sit in judgment upon the desolate fane of their self- 
love. We know that it cost Him a flood of bitter tears 
to condemn it, yet Divine Truth and Justice compelled 
Him. May sweet Jesus rebuke and chasten us now in 
love, that we may ever know Him as Saviour, never as 
Judge ! 



SAINT JOHN 67 



%W^ SDap fn tje flDctabe of (Cpipfianp 

3fei5U}5 ^tribinc to £Dbtain Acceptance 

Our Saviour was almost immediately driven out of 
the temple, and obliged to find His opportunity of 
teaching in the streets of Jerusalem. But even so He 
eagerly seized the opportunity which was afforded Him 
there by the Festival. St. John, in three rapid phrases, 
sums up the reason for Christ's hope that the people 
would be, at this time, particularly receptive: (a) His 
appeal was being made ''at Jerusalem," the city Gk)d 
had especially chosen, (b) The occasion was the an- 
niversary of the Passover, Jehovah's great deliverance 
of His people from slavery, (c) It was ^'during the 
feast,'' when all hearts were full of religious fervor. 

Jesus' labor during these days is touchingly indi- 
cated by the statement that He wrought many ''signs" 
to gain the faith of the people. For there is abundant 
evidence in the Gospels that working miracles weak- 
ened our Lord and made Him suffer. Thus we read 
that on one such occasion He sighed as if wearied 
(St. Mark vii: 34), and the Beloved Physician records 
that, after the healing of the woman with an issue, 
He said, "I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me" 
(St. Luke viii:46). St. Matthew, indeed, implies that 
in some way our Lord assumed the illnesses which He 
cured, so that thus He "took our infirmities and bare 
our sicknesses'' (viii : 16 f.). We should think of Him, 
therefore, during this week of street-preaching, as 
spending Himself to the uttermost during the day, and 
then at night, if His exhausted frame could endure it, 
passing long hours of intercession beneath the olive 
trees of Gethsemane — all to gain the faith and love of 
miserable, fallen creatures. 



68 SAINT JOHN 



Yet, with all He could do, He obtained but partial 
success. "Many," we read, ''believed in His name 
when they saw the miracles which He did." They 
accredited Him as rightly bearing the name Jesus 
Christ, ''the Anointed Saviour," because He had such 
power over the forces hostile to human life. But what 
He wanted was that they should believe "into Him," 
with such complete faith that they would surrender 
themselves body and soul to Him. Since they would 
not trust Him in this way. He could not trust Himself 
to them. Yet He made out of their very hardness an 
opportunity to manifest afresh the glory of His love 
for men. His enforced reserve in not committing 
Himself to them was a proof to them that His knowl- 
edge of human hearts was immediate, universal and 
complete. Of Himself, St. John assures us, He knew 
the innermost character and thoughts of all men. By 
this revelation of His divine wisdom, He would lead 
them on to believe in His Godhead and to receive Him 
without reserve. How can we ever doubt that God is 
love, when we find Him, in the Gospel and in the spir- 
itual experience of each one of us, making out of our 
very failures a new way to lead us upward ! 

IFor X\)t JFifae Daps JFoIIolning^ Read St. John iii : 1-15 

jFouttfi 2Dai? in tfie flDrtabe of (EpipSanp 

Ct)e 3ncreHuIitp of iSt il^icoliemuiB 

The Sanhedrist, who came to our Lord under cover 
of night, is a typical instance of the kind of disciples 
who "believed in Christ's Name." He accepted our 
Lord as a Rabbi, who had been taught, not in the 
Schools but directly by God. In this way be admitted 



SAINT JOHN 69 



that Jesus was the Christ, but in a sense which was s6 
incomplete as to permit of his continuing in harmony 
with false Jewish, rabbinical conceptions of Messiah. 
His Pharisaical prejudices, a certain conservatism nat- 
ural to an elderly man, and a very real timidity about 
incurring the contempt of his fellow-leaders among the 
Jews, if he accepted Christ as Divine, all united to 
make him a very difficult subject even for our Lord's 
infinite wisdom and patience. 

With that infallible intuition of others' minds of 
which St. John has spoken (ii: 24 f.), our Lord seems 
to have at once recognized a longing of the old man 
for renewed youth. He immediately took advantage 
of this, in order to lead Nicodemus on, from what hg 
already believed, to new truth. Accordingly, there-' 
fore. He said, with the extraordinary solemnity which 
His repeated 'Verily'' betokens, ''Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." 

The reply of the Pharisee indicates that Christ had 
suggested to him just such a rebirth as he had often 
craved, but as it seemed to him foolishly. He under- 
stood that the Master's reference was to spiritual 
regeneration, and this Nicodemus had desired as ear- 
nestly as vainly. A man is the sum of all his past 
choices and experiences ; in him is the accumulation of 
the habits, begun in boyhood, deepened in youth, and^ 
made seemingly ineradicable during maturity. How^ 
can he do away with this result of the years, and begirf 
afresh? Nicodemus probably refers to himself when 
he speaks of "a man when he is old." If his physical 
self cannot reissue from his mother, how can his moral 
self reissue from the womb of time? His incredulity 
is, therefore, of a very modern kind. Is there any 
Power, men ask, which can give me back again the 



70 SAINT JOHN 



purity of childhood, or the devotion I knew at my 
First Communion? And the answer is the same down 
the ages, as that which the Incarnate Word gave to 
Nicodemus. Through Christ, and the Sacraments of 
His Church, Hes that "road to yesterday." 

iFtf t6 SDap m X\t flDctabe oC (Cpfpfianp 

3[e!su« I^IeaH^ Cor jfaitl) in C^is igpirit 

There are two translations of those words of our 
Lord which our Bible renders : ''the wind bloweth 
where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but 
canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth/' 
The Greek m.eans also : ''the Spirit breatheth where It 
listeth, and thou hearest the Voice thereof, but know- 
est not whence It cometh and whither It goeth'' (iii : 8, 
R. V. Marg.). In fact, Jesus intended this saying to 
have a double meaning, in order to present His teach- 
ing of the Holy Ghost in the simplest and most at- 
tractive manner. As the invisible wind moves through 
the world where it will, so the Blessed Spirit breathes 
upon the water of Holy Baptism, or the bread and 
wine of Holy Communion, bestowing upon them what 
virtue He wishes. Thus our faith will not be hindered 
by the paltry matter of the sacraments. We must not 
regard the poor, material elements, but bethink our- 
selves of God Who breathes upon them. Nor is it 
what we do in preparation for Holy Confirmation 
which is of supreme importance. Let us but open our 
souls. The Holy Ghost will breathe His gifts into 
them, if He wills, and His Will is infinite love. 

But, while the Comforter is invisible, we can hear 
His Voice. As St. Augustine says : ''No one seeth the 



SAINT JOHN 71 



Spirit, and how do we hear His Voice? The Psahii 
sounds ; it is the Voice of the Spirit. The Gospel 
sounds ; it is the Voice of the Spirit. The Divine Word 
sounds; it is the Voice of the Spirit." Even Nicode- 
mus should have heard the Holy Spirit speaking 
through his Old Testament Scriptures (e.g. Ezek. 
xxxii:i-io; Zech. xiii:i). We Christians, perfectly 
instructed by our Lord, must recognize .His Spirit in 
the Divine Office of the Church, in our meditation, in 
sermons and spiritual books, and in the hearts and 
lives of His holy servants around us. 

Another great advantage we have, over the ''master 
in Israel.'' For he knew not ''whence the Blessed 
Spirit Cometh nor whither He goeth,'' but we know 
that He comes to us from Jesus' Heart, and returns 
thither bearing our souls, if we but let Him. 



&)fit5 2Dap in tfie flDctabe oC (Epfpfian? 

^ouIj3 Born of t|)e Spirit 

Like the wind, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, is the 
soul which has been born of Him at the font. For, as 
''the wind bloweth where it listeth," with absolute free- 
dom from all control except that of God, so is the child 
of the Blessed Spirit free. (Cp. 2 Cor. iii : 17.) But 
freedom, whether of the wind or of the Christian, 
springs from obedience to Divine law. The precise 
direction, volume and velocity of the air currents are 
absolutely determined by the rotation of the earth and 
the pressure of the atmosphere. But, because they per- 
fectly obey the law of their being, they blow where 
they "list." And in the spiritual world the angels and 
the blessed saints enjoy the "glorious liberty of the 



72 SAINT JOHN 



children of God" perfectly, because they are perfectly 
conformed to the will of their Father. 

Yet there are obstructions to the free course of the 
wind. If there were not, we could not hear *'the sound 
thereof.'' In our spiritual lives too there are, as it 
were, certain trees and crags and eaves of houses which 
seem to limit our freedom. These are opposing cir- 
cumstances, and cross-grained people, and our own hu- 
miliating failures. Let us, like the wind, turn these 
obstacles into so many instruments of music. Every 
one of them will, if we obey the law of our spiritual' 
being, elicit from us the "Voice'' of the Spirit of Love. 

Our birth of water upon which the Holy Ghost was 
brooding (Gen. i:2, R. V. Marg.) was as mysterious, 
our Lord declared, as the source of the wind. Nor 
can any man tell whither we and the winds are hasten- 
ing. But God who begot us will surely receive us at 
last, and be our Goal, behind the veil. One thing only 
is required of us. We must permit ourselves to be 
''borne forward unto perfection" by the inspirations of 
the Holy Spirit (Heb. vi: 2, literally translated). 

Nicodemus continued to be mystified by the teach- 
ing of the new birth, and sought some explanation 
which his reason could fully comprehend. ''Hozv can 
these things be?" he asked. But it is of the very na- 
ture of a mystery that we cannot understand ''how it 
can be." Our supernatural religion, moreover, is full 
of mysteries, culminating in the supreme mystery of 
the Blessed Trinity. If, therefore, our Lord could not 



SAINT JOHN 73 



persuade His vistor to take His Word for the reality 
of a sacrament, how could He ever lead him to be- 
lieve in the Tripersonal Unity of God? ''If I have 
told you earthly things, and ye believe not,'' he said 
to Nicodemus, and indeed to us all, ''how shall ye be- 
lieve, if I tell you of heavenly things?'' The "earthly 
things" here are the Divine transactions in the sphere 
of this world, particularly the sacraments of the 
Church, represented by Holy Baptism. The ^'heavenly 
things" are those great mysteries of God's love, like 
the Beatific Vision, which are so far above reason that 
they require the maximum of divine faith. 

The reality of the sacraments is indeed evidenced to 
our reason by souls ''twice born" through frequenting 
them. Already the Apostolic band had seen this power 
of Christ's mysterious hidden grace to regenerate souls. 
''We speak that we do know and testify that me have 
seen," our Lord could say, including with His own the 
witness of His disciples to the efficacy of His grace in 
human lives. Sacraments, to our Lord and the Apos- 
tolic Church, were but the *' first principles" of the 
Christian religion, by which our faith is trained for 
far more transcendent mysteries (Heb. vi:i, A. V. 
Marg.). 

Jesus' great lesson to Nicodemus, therefore, was 
this: True faith lies in believing all His teaching, 
about "earthly" and "heavenly things" alike, on His 
Word, Who was "in Heaven," "in the bosom of the 
Father," even while He was revealing these Divine 
truths on earth (iii: 13; i: 18). For he could not be 
mistaken, nor deceive us. Faith in His Word is, there- 
fore, more certain than knowledge of scientific propo- 
sitions which are accredited to reason, for these some- 
times prove to be erroneous. The basis of matter was 



74 SAINT JOHN 



until recently thought to be the atom. But physicists 
are now convinced that it is unextended energy, and 
perhaps this view will give way to the conviction that 
ether is the elemental substance. But the verities of 
the Catholic Faith have withstood the multiform as- 
saults of innumerable enemies through nearly nineteen 
centuries and remain as certain and as final as at the 
first, because they are based upon the changeless Truth 
of God. V 

^mx^^"^ in tfie ^tid^^z of (Cpfp^anp 

JFaiti^ in tj^e Dibinc ^in^bearer 

When once Jesus had impressed upon Nicodemus 
the necessity of accepting His teaching simply on the 
faith of His infallible Word, He immediately proceed- 
ed to instruct him about the ineffable mystery of the 
Atonem,ent. With His appealing confidence in men 
rising up to the loftiest achievements. He trusted that 
the timid, old man, ''stealing to Him under the cloak 
of night," would believe the teaching of the Cross. 
Nor was He mistaken, for when our Saviour had been 
''lifted up," Nicodemus cam.e, no longer by night, but 
through the daylight, to take his place with the disci- 
ples on Calvary (xix: 39). 

Tile Brazen Serpent which Jehovah had caused to 
be made for a cure of the fiery serpents' bites in the 
wilderness was designed so as to resemble the reptiles 
attacking the Israelites as perfectly as possible (Num. 
xxi : 8). Yet of course it was only like the enemies of 
God's people and was in fact the remedy iox the dead- 
ly fever they were causing in their victims. It was in 
this way that the symbol lifted up upon the cruciform 
pole was a type of our Lord on the Cross. For He 



SAINT JOHN 



"was made in the likeness" of sinful man ; He was 
''made to be sin/' and ''a curse" (Phil. ii:7; 2 Cor. 
v:2i; Gal. iii : 13). Yet He remained always the im- 
m.aculate Son of God, Whose resemblance to the evil 
things which attack His people, w^as only in order that 
He might cure their fiery bite. 

It was necessary for the Israelites but to look upon 
the Fiery Serpent lifted up before their eyes. But 
they could not do this without seeing the representa- 
tion of the evil monsters they had brought upon them- 
selves by their sin, and in this Vv^ay the look w^ould be a 
confession and an act of penitence. There were some, 
indeed, it seems, who refused to ''behold the serpent 
of brass." We Christians, also, must habitually "be- 
hold the Lamb of God" with unquestioning faith in 
His Atonement, although to look upon Him hum.bles 

our pride in the dust. x 

3 

^|)e JFtot ^ijE Da^s after V^t (Kptpl)ang Dctabf* 
Read St. lohn iii : 16-36 

apontiap rafter t5e Jfit0t fe)unliap %ixzt (EpipSanp 

6oli*}3 Jlcfae for ^ouIi3 

It is wonderful that the Evangelist who declares 
most plainly the love of God for the whole world is 
the Apostle who was most profoundly impressed by 
the wuckedness of m^an. Scholars insist that, accord- 
ing to the genuine text, our Lord had said {v. 15) : 
"The Son of Man must be lifted up, that whosoever 
believeth in Him may have eternal life." When St. 
John wrote, however, the evil of the world around him 
was so black that it cast a somber shadow even upon 
his glorious proclamation of the Divine charity for our 
race : "God so loved the world, that He gave His 



76 SAINT JOHN 



Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish^ but have eternal life." He has in- 
serted in our Lord's gracious words a solemn warning 
that those who do not believe in Christ perish. It is 
significant, also, that it is he who records our Lord's^ 
saying, ''the world hateth Me'' (vii:/). But for all 
his clear vision of the fearful sin in the world, this 
great, true optimist declares that both the Father and 
the Son so loved our whole race that they willed to 
save all mankind, even by the Cross. 

Moreover, he tells us that God ''gave'' His Son. 
This is quite different from saying that the Father 
sent our Lord. For when God gave His Only-begot- 
ten to men. He bestowed Him upon us, to be our very 
own. And, since our greatest need of Christ was to 
have him for our Sin-bearer, the Father's gift of Him 
involved His intention that Jesus should be our Sacri- 
fice on the Atoning Tree. 

St. John is unique in calling Christ by the title 
"Only-begotten." He does this for a double purpose: 
(a) He would teach us that God gave His own, and 
His only. Son to us. If we only believe ''into Him," 
we shall not even be judged; but our sole hope is in 
Him alone (v, i8). (b) He has represented Chris- 
tians as the "begotten" sons of God, and he must de- 
clare the uniqueness of our Lord's Sonship unmistak- 
ably. So close has our Father's love drawn us poor 
sinners to Himself in Christ, that we needed to be 
cautioned against supposing that we have been given 
a share in the very Deity of God's Only-begotten. 



SAINT JOHN 11 



^|)e <r^ri)3tian ^anifeistinc €|)ri)9t 

There is a vivid contrast between the unconverted 
sinner and the loyal disciple of Christ, in the attitude 
they take about laying their deeds before our Lord. 
The former *'loves darkness because his deeds are 
evil": but the latter '*cometh to the light that his deeds 
may be made manifest." It is generally a perfect proof 
that what we are doing or contemplating is righteous, 
if we can lay it open to Jesus' gaze and ask His bless- 
ing upon it. Our saintly Master, however, knew hu- 
man hearts too well to say, as His contrast would 
naturally lead Him to say, that the Christian "loveth 
the light.'' We come, but often it is only after a 
sharp struggle and perhaps with lagging steps, when 
we know that the light, it may be of a retreat or a mis- 
sion, will show us hard things to do. And even when 
we have triumphed in ''doing the truth," the light will 
make manifest the plain fact that our deeds ''are 
wrought," not in our own power, but *'in God." Con- 
sequently, it will require heroism, now and then, for us 
poor brethren of Christ to be children of the light. 

Later, St. John records a saying of our Lord which 
directs us not only to live in the Light, but also to have 
the Light in us: ''He that followeth Me," was His 
promise, "shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the 
Light of Life" (viii: 12). Thus we are to possess the 
Sun of Righteousness in our own hearts. For we are 
meant to be the "lighthouses of life," manifesting the 
Light of the World through our personality. Our dear 
Saint sums up Christian conduct in his practical way, 
as "doing the truth," meaning that "right action is 
true thought realized. Every fragment of right done 



78 SAINT JOHN 



is so much truth made visible/' Let us strive always 
to reveal that radiant Truth which dwells in our hearts. 
The great dignity of Christians through their shar- 
ing in the white light of Christ, appears from the 
august title given them by St. Paul and St. John 
(Phil, ii: 15, R. V. Marg. ; Rev. xxi: 11, R. V. Marg.). 
For, whereas the holy Baptist was, in his earthly life, 
only a ''lamp kindled and shining," we are luminaries 
in the firmament of God. Only our Lord, the Day- 
spring, is more glorious than we are enabled to be 
through His indwelling. . 

aOcdmgtra? attet tfie iFitgft ^antiap 
after (Cptpganp 

Who are the most practical people in the world? 
Are they the Christians, represented, let us suppose, 
by religious, or are they, perhaps, successful business 
men of the kind whose highest aspiration is to see their 
stocks swiftly rising? St. John solved this question 
in the passage wq have been considering. Let us ex- 
amine his answer carefully. 

It is conveyed in his contrast between those who 
''practice evil deeds" and those who ''do the truth." 
The former verb, in the original, has the idea of busy 
activity, of restless energy; the latter expresses quiet 
accomplishment. The results gained by the one are 
many and evil ; while the other performs but a single 
life-work, which, however, increases the total of Divine 
Truth, in the world. All the various products of god- 
less striving after selfish gain will perish ; the one fruit 
(Gal. v:22) of the ''children of light" has the ever- 
lasting permanence of Him Who is Truth. 



SAINT JOHN 79 



St. John's principles of practical business are most 
solemnly confirmed by our Lord (v:29). In reveal- 
ing the Final Judgment, He said that ''they who have 
done good shall come forth from their graves unto the 
resurrection of life; and they that have practiced evil 
unto the resurrection of damnation." Let us, then, be 
true capitalists, and give our labor with eager avarice 
to the eternal work of Truth, which is wrought in God 
and shall remain. . 

f 

^|)ur0l)ap after tfie iFitiSt fe)un&ap 
matter (Kpipfian? 

J,tm^ ^ap Wi\\\ flDur jfailure 

It appears that in the beginning of our Lord's Min- 
istry, both He and His Forerunner baptized in the 
same locality. Presently, however, it began to be said 
that Jesus' ministration brought greater blessings than 
John's, whereupon arose the ''question about purify- 
ing,'' that is, about the relative value of the two bap- 
tisms. The ardent loyalty of the Baptist's disciples 
was fired to jealous anger by seeing the multitude 
leaving their master and going to Christ, and they 
came to St. John complaining. Let us study their in- 
dictment of our Lord. First they protest that He, 
Who has now become the cause of their master's fail- 
ure, had been with him in the midst of his success 
"beyond Jordan." Why then was He interfering with 
the ministry which was evidently so efficient and so 
full of promise for the conversion of God's people? 
Ought He to have established Himself in the very 
same neighborhood with His successful fellow-laborer, 
when this would surely lead to the lessening of his holy 
influence for righteousness and piety? This is the 



80 SAINT JOHN 



sort of doubts which are always likely to assail us, 
also, when our Lord lets us fail, ignominiously, per- 
haps, just when we were in the midst of some appar- 
ently successful work for Him. 

In the second place, the objectors pointed out that 
Christ was the very One to Whom their master had 
borne witness before the multitude, which as St. 
Matthew tells us, had included the population of 
"Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round 
about Jordan'' (iii:5). Why then, did He not bear 
witness to His Forerunner? Often this question also 
will intrude itself upon us when, either in our own 
case, or in that of some other servant of Jesus, we 
see faithful, loyal, humble service rewarded, not by 
success and honor, but by failure and obscurity, pos- 
sibly even by the deprivation of the very power of con- 
tinuing the work. 

The last charge was that 'all men were coming to 
Christ.' But in this lies our consolation when we fail. 
For we may be sure, always, that, in the perfect Wis- 
dom of our Master, even our failures in the work of 
our vocation will somehow help in bringing the world 
to the feet of Jesus. His one desire was that all men 
should come to Him, and by whatever agency this is 
accomplished, even if it be through the defeat of all 
our own plans, we attain thereby a share in God's own 
j>erfect success. x 

iftiHap aftit X\t iFitsft feuntiap 9MXzt (CpipSan? 

^t« 3[ot)n ^aptijBt WMxMi to JFail 

Jesus' Herald met the jealous complaints of his fol- 
lowers by showing them three reasons for his being 
not only willing, but glad, to fail when it was his 



SAINT JOHN 81 



Master's wish. First, he could claim no authority, or 
preferment, except that which had been given him, 
and, as he had always told them, his was not the voca- 
tion of the Christ. Thus he gently reminded them that 
he had always taken the lowest possible place in Jesus' 
service. The rabbis said : ''Every office which a serv- 
ant will do for his master, a scholar should perform 
for his teacher, except loosing his sandal-thong/' But 
St. John insisted that he was unworthy even to do 
this lowliest servile duty for the Son of God. If, 
therefore, he was less than Jesus' slave, how could he 
object to his Master letting him fail if He pleased? 

But, poor menial as he was in himself, he had been 
chosen by Christ to be His ''friend'' at His nuptials 
with His people. This was the second of St. John's 
reasons for his willingness to see his success dwindle 
to nothing. To his contemporaries, his metaphor 
meant that the passing of his disciples to Jesus was 
the marriage for which he had sought the Bride and 
made the preparations. Now that he could hear the 
Voice of the Bridegroom, leading His lowly spouse 
Homeward, his joy was fulfilled. 

Finally, he contended, it must be that Messiah 
should increase, while he decreased. As he spoke, he 
knew that imprisonment and martyrdom were hang- 
ing over him, for before this he had denounced 
Herod's wicked marriage. His ''decrease" would be 
through long languishing in Machaerus and perishing 
at last by the axe, at midnight. Yet his joy was ful- 
filled, for he knew that Jesus would "increase" through 
his final testimony to righteousness, sealed with his 
blood. Then let this be our sole concern, as it was his, 
that the King have His blessed will with His slaves, 
who are yet His friends (xv: 15), for He will surely 



82 SAINT JOHN 



use even our failures and disasters in His Service, to 
draw souls into eternal union with Himself. 

feattttnap after X\t JFirsft Sunliap 
after (Cpfpjanp 

Ct)rii9t Sujperior to ^11 i^uman t!reac][)er)3 

The Roman Empire, in St. John's day, was full of 
pagan and Jewish teachers, some of them men of con- 
siderable ability. No doubt there was, too, the same 
temptation then that there is now, to prefer some 
Oriental ^'mystic," or brilliant ethical culturist to Jesus 
Christ, with His simple, severe Gospel. Accordingly, 
the aged Apostle seeks to guard his 'little children'' 
against allowing any such human master to seduce 
them from their allegiance to Christ. In Origin, doc- 
trine, and Being, he tells them, our Lord is as far 
above all these savants as Heaven is above earth {v, 
31). To people in the plain of mere natural reason 
it might look as if the loftiest heights of human genius 
towered up into the very Sun of Righteousness, but to 
him on the mountain-top it was evident that the glo- 
rious Dayspring was at an immeasurable distance 
above even the most gigantic intellects of men. 

To make this infinite superiority of our Lord clearer 
to ourselves, let us compare the most splendid human 
genius with Him: (a) It is the productions of the 
poet or painter or musician which we prize often with- 
out caring about the author; it is the Personality, not 
the masterpieces, of Christ, for which ten thousand 
times ten thousand have joyfully given life itself, (b) 
There are degrees of genius ; we cannot imagine there 
being less or more of Jesus' holiness and love — -His 



SAINT JOHN ^ 83 



"incommunicable splendor/' (c) The great ones of 
earth keep us, awe-struck, at a distance ; the humblest 
"claim Christ for themselves, and themselves for 
Christ/' (d) Genius wins our admiration; Jesus 
Christ receives our worship. 

Even the inspired prophets were far inferior to 
Him, for they received the Holy Ghost in "portions," 
so that they were infallible only in their contribution 
to Holy Scripture (Num. xi: 17; 2 Kings ii:9). But 
to Christ, God gave "not the Spirit by measure/' 
Therefore, even apart from His Godhead, He could 
speak only "the Words of God/' Shall we then be- 
lieve the fabulous wonders of false cults, and reject 
the mysteries of His kingdom! Shall we not rather 
live by every Word that proceedeth out of the Mouth 
of the God-Man ! , 

Wc^z SeconH Saileelt lifter t|)e ©|3{jpi)anp flDctabe^ 
Read St. John iv : 1-42 

W^t fe)econ& feunliap after (Cpipfianp 

€|)ni3t*i3 (Ea3ernc}3.0 to (gain (Kberp €5ouI 

Our Lord was worn out with His journey from 
Judea, and many days' fasting, and He lay "thus/' 
that is in a posture of utter weariness, on the curb of 
the well. He was wearing the garments of a Jerusa- 
lem Rabbi, it seems, and the seamless robe which was 
peculiar to high priests. Then came the woman. 
There was every reason for her to fear and distrust 
Him — a Jew, from Jerusalem of all places ; a member 
of that haughty group of her people's enemies, the 
Rabbis ; and above all, a high priest. Yet, in the eyes 
of this Rabbi was a look which from the first disposed 
her to confide in Him. 



84 . SAINT JOHN 



How winningly He began to seek her soul! The 
way of ways to disarm her was to ask her a favor. 
Therefore, He Who owned the whole universe ap- 
pealed to His creature for refreshment. And we see 
how successful this device of love was from the way 
in which He speedily overcame her Samaritan sus- 
picion and reserve. 

As the interview proceeds, there are many instances 
of the great care He took to gain her. The most nota- 
ble of these is His suggestion to her of the Fatherhood 
of God {w, 21-23). She had never before thought 
of herself as the child of God. Is it not wonderful to 
behold the eternal Creator seeking by every device of 
love to gain the faith of His own creature? And yet 
every one of us is being besieged day after day by this 
same Infinite Personal Love. 

Sl^ontiag after tjt fe)econli feuntiap 
after CCpipSanp 

3fe}3Ui3* JFaboritcia 

It will convince us more perfectly that our Lord is 
ever seeking every human soul with all His boundless 
tenderness and wisdom, if we study the degraded state 
of the Samaritan woman. For she, like all her people, 
was a schismatic and a heretic, who rejected all of the 
Old Testament except the Five Books of Moses {v, 
22). Moreover, she was an inhabitant of ''Sychar,'' 
which was a nickname, probably, for Shechem, mean- 
ing ''the City of the Liar,'' or ''of the Drunkard." 
Such a nickname probably indicates that the village 
was especially degraded, even for Samaria. Finally, 
she was a fallen woman — from the demi-monde of 



SAINT JOHN 85 



Sychar {yu, i6f.) — who had come out to this more 
distant and deeper well instead of going to the more 
convenient one on the other side of the village, in 
order to be alone and escape the scorn of her fellow- 
townspeople. 

The charity of our Lord for her appears the more 
strikingly as we observe the amazement which it cre- 
ated in the Apostles {v, 2y). For it was clean con- 
trary to the custom of the rabbis that He should speak 
with a woman at all. They said : "A man should not 
salute a woman in a public place, not even if she is his 
wife." But the Twelve found their Master speaking 
with this woman, and that, as St. John's words show, in 
the simplest and kindest manner, without a trace of 
hauteur or condescension. Moreover, He was evi- 
dently instructing her in religion, whereas the current 
opinion in Jerusalem was that ''it were better to bum 
the words of the Law than to deliver them to a 
woman.'' In fact, dear Jesus broke through many 
contemporary conventions, in order to reach this poo^^' 
needy soul. 

Famishing and starving as He was, He forgot both^ 
hunger and thirst in His ardent love for one ignorant, • 
obscure, sinner. Well has it been said that in Hisr^ 
Ministry His favorites seem always to have been ''the' 
last, the least, the lost." May He find us all among' 
the last and the least, and united with Him in love of 
the lost ! ^ 

^ue0liag Sititt tSe fetCDnft &ttiHiap 
atter (Eptpfianp 

Cl)ri)3t'i8 ©reciouj3 (Sift for dBberp Soul 

To the astonishment of the woman, our Lord, al- 
most immediately after He had asked her for water, 



86 SAINT JOHN 



declared that in reality it was she who needed to ask a 
draught of ''living water" from Him. Their positions 
were in reality the reverse of what they seemed. It is 
as if He said to her : 'Tt is Thou who art weary and 
foot-sore and parched, close to the well and yet unable 
to drink; it is I who can give thee the Living Water 
which will quench thy thirst forever." Now, the water 
was sanctifying grace, the principle of spiritual life; 
the Well was His Own Soul, and the empty vessel was 
hers. 

In order to make, not the woman only, but all of 
us, crave this ''gift of God," our Saviour goes on to 
contrast the "living water" with the water of Jacob's 
well, which represents all temporal blessings. This 
satisfies, without satiety; that slaked thirst only for a 
moment. This is a well freely given, and leaping up 
within the soul; that was inaccessible without great 
effort. This is eternal in its value ; that was only tran- 
sitory. 

To accentuate His divine largess still more, Christ 
developed His image of the spiritual well in this won- 
derful way: It is as a spring of water, always a 
mysterious thing to the ancients, which therefore indi- 
cates that grace is from the mysterious source of His 
Soul. It leaps up like a live thing, so prodigally abun- 
dant is the supply from Him. The overflow is not lost, 
but, we may suppose, is caught in the vessels of other 
souls, since it is safe for eternity. Let us then eagerly 
echo the plea of the Samaritan, "Sir, give me this 
water, that I thirst not'' forever. 



SAINT JOHN 87 



(Iflielinegtiap after tfie fe)ecDmi &unliap 
aftrt (KptpSanp 

Wc^t /feature of <Soti 

St. John tells us, in his Gospel and First Epistle, all 
we know about the essential Being of God. There are 
three magnificent revelations of the Divine Nature in 
these sacred writings, and they are our Evangelist's 
priceless gift to Christian theolog>\ ''God is a spirit" 
is the first of these. In Him is no material thing which 
can modify the absolute and infinite perfection of His 
Nature. Our Lord declared this glorious truth to us, 
in order to draw from it the practical inference that 
we must worship our God ''in spirit and in truth." 
The Christian must, therefore, approach the pure 
Spirit of God, himself purified from all clinging to 
material things, and filled, so far as is possible for him, 
with true worship and love. 

**God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all," says 
the epistle again (i St. John i:5). With St. John 
light is always the symbol of purity, and this statement 
of his means that the Divine Nature is ineflfably Holy. 
And he demands of us, whose glorious vocation it is 
to be like God, that we shall let this Divine Light 
permeate our souls through and through. 

"God is love" is the beloved disciple's final revela- 
tion of the Nature of the Deity (i St. John iv: 8, i6). 
If God were only Spirit, His aloofness from us, poor 
earth-worms, would be so awful that we would hardly 
dare go nigh Him; and if He were only Light, His 
infinite Holiness would be unbearable to corrupt crea- 
tures. But since He is Love, He cannot be contented 
to remain aloof, but must come to us, in a material 
Nature, that He may communicate His Holiness to us. 



SAINT JOHN 



The cause of the Incarnation, therefore, was the In- 
finite tenderness of God. It is His supreme appeal, 
not only for worship and HoHness, but for love for 
Him, like His for us. . 

afUt (Kpip^an? 

J^oto Mfe S©ap (Sain Deeper BnotoIeti(je of (Soli 

The first two people in the world to whom our Lord 
revealed His Messiahship, apart from the Apostolic 
Band, were both outcasts, the one from society in 
Sychar and the other from the Jewish Religion (ix: 
34-37). The great primary reason for this was of 
course not any arbitrary preference on our Lord's 
part, but simply the fact that these were especially 
needy souls, who realized their emptiness. The Phari- 
sees considered that they required no further revela- 
tion from God. They wanted only a Messiah who 
would vanquish and expel the hated Romans. But the 
Samaritan was seeking a Messiah who would tell her 
the truth, and accordingly Jesus filled her mind and 
heart with the Divine Light which she sought. In our 
meditation and our spiritual reading, we ought, after 
her example, to present ourselves before our Lord 
with a deep sense of need. 

The most magnificent conception of Christ, ex- 
pressed by any group of people in the Scriptures, is 
that of the Samaritans, after only two days spent in 
the presence of our Saviour. ''This is indeed the 
Christ, the Saviour of the world,'' is their triumpham 
confession of faith. Why was it that these poor igno- 
rant schismatics so quickly gained the clear conviction 
of our Lord's world-wide love and power, when the 



SAINT JOHN 89 



rabbis of God's Capitol rejected and crucified Him? 
It was because the Samaritans knew, by personal ex- 
perience, that man needs a Deliverer from sin, not a 
splendid temporal monarch. Let us learn from them, 
that by humility and penitence we open our hearts to 
knovv^ Christ better. 

These Samaritans provide, moreover, a fine example 
of the truth that it was the simple people to whom 
God's Word gave light and understanding. Now, 
"simplicity is not a negative thing, but a positive and 
deliberate loyalty to the truth by which one lives.'' 
With all their faults, the Sycharites must have pre- 
served an essential fidelity to their dim vision of Divine 
Truth. Let us but live by the glorious revelation God 
has granted us, and His mind w^ill surely be manifested 
to us more and more. ^ 

iFtidap after t&e feeconli ^unUap mxtt (EpipSanp 

©nconjjcious ^otoinix for Ifcsuis 

Our Lord revealed to the Samaritan woman far 
more Divine Truth than He had made known to the 
whole multitude of people, many of them no doubt 
instructed, pious Jews, in the Sermon on the Mount. 
One partial explanation of this is that she had been in 
a measure prepared, and made receptive to His teach- 
ing. In the field of her soul, unconscious husband- 
men had been sowing God's harvest. Who they were 
we know not, except that Moses and the Patriarchs 
had no doubt done their share through the first Five 
Books of the Scriptures. But there must have been 
many obscure servants of God, who knew not even 
that they were planting for Him, but who had never- 
theless labored to prepare His harvest in the woman 



90 SAINT JOHN 



of Sychar and her fellow-villagers. Indeed, their con- 
version served our Lord as material for a lesson to 
the Apostles, that they also must be prepared to sow 
spiritual seed from which other agents of His would 
reap and garner (yv. 36-38). 

The Samaritans prove to us that we may find a 
great opportunity to sow for Christ among people 
whose receptiveness we would never suspect. St. 
John emphasizes the fact of their remarkable willing- 
ness to believe in Christ by contrasting with it the infi- 
delity of Jerusalem. For Jerusalem was divinely 
named the *' Vision of Peace"; Sychar was the *'Town 
of the Liar" or ''the Drunkard.'' Our Lord sought 
Jerusalem many times; ''He must needs go through 
Samaria.'' Jerusalem refused to believe His many 
miracles. His revelations and. His crowning proof, the 
manifestation of His Divine Personality; Sychar be- 
lieved on the statement of one poor sinner, who only 
half credited her own message {y. 29, A. V. Marg.). 
The Pharisees in the Gate of Jerusalem said, with 
jealous hatred, "Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? 
behold the world is gone after Him" (xiiiig); the 
people of Sychar stood in their gate and said, in joyous 
faith, "This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the 
world." It seems that our Lord never slept in Jeru- 
salem, but He tarried two nights in Sychar. Jerusa- 
lem excommunicated and outlawed Him ; Sychar kept 
beseeching Him to abide there permanently. 

It seems evident, therefore, that we Christians have 
a great work to do for Jesus by simply being His 
servants, and exercising, quite unconsciously, a holy 
influence over those among whom we move in our ob- 
scure life. It was to those who would seem to be 
most unlikely to receive Him, "babes," the "blind,'* 



i 



SAINT JOHN 



the ''sick/' the outcasts and the sinners, that our Lord 
declared Himself especially sent. Let iis think our- 
selves happy that we may sow in these chosen fields of 
Flis the seed of His eternal harvest. 

&atutliap acttr tfie ^rcand §)unliap 
after (Cpip^ang 

€i)nj5t*!3 ©erfect ^rujat in 2I}3 

The conversion of the Sycharites occurred in Jan- 
uary or February, when the first green shoots of the 
coming harvest had but just forced their way through 
the surface. The men of the village were to be seen 
across the fields leaving the gate on their way to Jesus. 
It was then that he said to the Apostles, ''Say not ye, 
there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? 
Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on 
the fields ; for they are white already to harvest." 
What did He mean? There was only the early prom- 
ise of a crop springing from the soil before them, nor 
was there more than the first beginning of the spiritual 
harvest in the souls of the Samaritans. Where then 
was the ripe grain which Jesus saw ? 

In His eyes, the long development of those poor 
catechumens, with but the first ray of Gospel-light in 
their souls, was already accomplished. So unquestion- 
ing was His faith in them, and so complete His assur- 
ance that they would go on to become an everlasting 
harvest for His Heavenly storehouse, that He accepted 
them even in the inception of their salvation, as al- 
ready fully prepared for eternal life. 

Such a magnanimous trust in us is a challenge to 
•our loyalty. For we can never consent to disappoint 



92 SAINT JOHN 



Christ's absolute confidence in us. And when we be- 
hold our Lord so triumphant, so happy, over this first 
welcome of His Word, by a few Samaritans, we feel 
bound to take up our struggle for perfection afresh^ 
if it were but to bring that joyful smile to His lips, as 
He sees in us the first green shoots and counts His 
harvest certain. 



W^z Wc}Xt^ 2Heeli 9:fter X\}t (Opiptjanp Dctabe* 

Read St. John iv : 43-v : 20 

W^z ^Jirti feundap actet CpipSang 

3fejsu!3 2UeIcomin(X 'Brginnincis of jfatt^ 

Our Lord had been cast off by His own country, 
Judea, and by His own village of Nazareth. Conse- 
quently, when He returned into Galilee, it was grate- 
ful to His bruised Heart that ''the Galileans received 
Him.'' But the Greek word for ''receive" is one which 
is used here only in St. John. It is chosen for a par- 
ticular purpose, which is to indicate that the reception 
thus granted to our Saviour was one inspired by 
ephemeral enthusiasm because of His miracles at Jeru- 
salem (cp. vi:66). We wish that the Apostle could 
have used that other word which involves the idea of 
intention to retain after receiving. But, imperfect as 
He knew their welcome to be, Jesus valued it as honor- 
ing Him in the way "His own country" had refused 
to do. 

"He came, therefore,'' St. John continues, ''again in- 
to Cana of Gahlee where He made the water wine." He 
means by his ''therefore," that, because of the hopeful 
reception given Christ by the Galileans, He was en- 
couraged to pause again at the most favorable point for 



SAINT JOHN 93 



the development of their faith, the village where some 
had '* believed into Him" after His first great **sign." 
And, in fact, He was rewarded by the opportunity of 
helping one who had probably begun to believe through 
the report of the miracle at the wedding feast. 

At first sight it seems as if our Lord rebuffed the 
nobleman, for He said unto him, ''Except ye see signs 
and wonders, ye will not believe." But, in fact, this 
was addressed to the crowd of Galileans gathered 
around Him. It is an appeal to them to accept, and 
value supremely, a proof of His Deity higher than that 
of miracles, that is the revelation of His Personality. 
He does indeed fault these old neighbors of His be- 
cause they had not learned to believe in Him during 
the thirty years of His life at Nazareth. Like the 
people of Jerusalem (vii: 27), they had not been able 
to accept the Divine revealed in the midst of the com- 
monplace. The very fact that they knew Him as the 
village Carpenter had blinded them to the plain, daily, 
manifestation of His Divine perfection. But He gave 
the inferior ''sign" willingly and gladly, v^elcoming 
the imperfect faith of the people. Is it not encourag- 
ing to us that our Lord prizes thus even our earliest 
beginnings of perfect faith! 

a^onda? after tSe ^5ftb feundap 
after Cpipfiang 

3fei5ui5 anU Wc^iiz in iKft^J^oH'^ IPalace 

The nobleman who came to our Lord seeking the 
cure of his son was one of King Herod Antipas' 
household. Later, the Tetrarch seems to know of His 
miraculous power, and probably it was the healing of 



94 SAINT J OH A 



this sick boy and the cure of Joanna the wife of 
Chuza his steward which had attracted his attention 
(St. Luke viii:2f. ; xxiii:8). No doubt his keen 
intellectual curiosity led him to investigate these two 
miracles thoroughly, so that through them all the love 
and mercy of God were clearly exemplified to him. 
Yet, in the end, he and his soldiers set the God-Man 
at nought, at zero, because they were disappointed in 
Christ as an object of sensational interest. So it is 
that some are quite fascinated by the Catholic Faith, 
at first, but finally they fall away because their religion 
has been purely intellectual, or aesthetic, and has never 
laid open their hearts and consciences to Jesus. 

Many think that the nobleman was Chuza. At all 
events, Herod's steward had this child's cure, as well 
as the healing of his wife, to effect his conversion, 
and it appears that he became a disciple. Certainly, he 
permitted his wife, Joanna, to follow our Lord in His 
journeys, with the other holy women, and to minister 
to Him of the family ''substance." In this way he 
represents to us those who are occupied with the af- 
fairs of the world, and yet give their alms, their dear 
ones, and their own hearts to their Saviour. 

There was one other in that luxurious court, who 
learned of Christ's miracles. This was the king's fos- 
ter-brother, Manaen, a man well past fifty, who had 
been brought up as one of the family of Herod, mis- 
called the Great. All his life he had been the compan- 
ion of princes and a sharer of their Oriental splendor 
and sensuous pleasures. Yet, at the call of the Naza- 
rene, he left wealth, power and a career, to join the 
Court of the Crucified (Acts xiiiri). May Jesus 
grant that His Gospel may become as efficient in our 
hearts as it was in His servant Manaen. 



SAINT JOHN 95 



attet (EpipSanp 

^i^e ILato of Hobe abobe ail £)t|)er Hatois 

It admirably illustrates the eager, seeking persist- 
ence of Jesus' love, that after being driven away from 
Jerusalem, and even from Judea, he retired only to 
plan another method of appeal to His Capital. This 
time, he would refer to Himself as far as possible only 
indirectly as ''the Son,'' and speak mainly of ''the 
Father." The Samaritans had accepted Him as the 
Saviour sent by their Heavenly Father; perhaps the 
Jews would surrender to this same attack of His 
Charity. 

His Love was, moreover, as tireless as it was in- 
genious. The Jews persecuted Him and sought to kill 
Him because He was in the habit of performing acts of 
mercy on the Sabbath {y. i6). His Charity could not 
rest. In the case of the impotent man, however, He 
deliberately chose the Sabbath for this conspicuous 
miracle, in order to teach His people that the law of 
love is superior to all other laws. And the symbolism 
of the "sign" was particularly significant of His mean- 
ing. For it was well known that the man had lain 
there waiting for a saviour for thirty-eight years, and 
this was exactly the period of Israel's punishment in 
the wilderness (Deut. ii:i4ff.). Thus He intended 
to give the holy law of charity the supreme sanction 
of God's own example. Divine Love alone had 
brought Him down to earth to save His people, help- 
less in their sin like the paralytic. 

The third quality of the love so perfectly exempli- 
fied in Christ is that it does the more for another in 
proportion, not to his right, but to his need. It was the 



96 SAINT JOHN 



impotent man's utter lack of means to help himself 
which attracted our Saviour's tender sympathy {yv, 
6 f.). In this, again, we see how charity transcends all 
canons based upon justice. See, then, how thoughtful, 
energetic and unmeasured must be our love if it is to 
be even a little like the Charity of Christ. 

ajUe&ne^&ap after X\t W^\tt\ Sanliap 

Woz Habor of <Soti for tl)e aKKorin 

Our Saviour sought to explain to the Jews that His 
cure of the impotent man was typical of God's Provi- 
dence. ''My Father worketh even until now, and I 
work^" He declared, meaning that His deed of love 
that day was simply part of the Divine work through- 
out the ages, and had a deep, underlying harmony with 
the whole. As God continually supports the universe 
in His Arms, so Christ had lifted up the helpless per- 
son. The Blessed Trinity had sent the Son to redeem 
the world; in conformity with this, Jesus had sought 
to save the cripple frpm his sins {v. 14). Divine Char- 
ity is seeking to restore our whole race to Paradise, 
just as our Lord restored the impotent man to his 
home. 

But the wonder of God's love is that it continues 
and even increases, in spite of man's wickedness and 
perversity. The Jews turned our Saviour's feasts into 
crises of His Life-tragedy. Three great miracles, 
which were peculiarly significant of His Divine Love, 
this one we are considering, the cure of the man bom 
Mind (ix), and the raising of Lazarus from the dead 
(xi), they made the occasions of their deadly hatred. 



SAINT JOHN 97 



Yet He only pressed on with ever-increasing love, seek- 
ing their salvation. 

Still again, our Lord proved to us that God attends 
to each detail of every man's welfare. At the risk of 
insult, or even stoning, He sought the restored cripple 
in the temple, because He must teach him the spiritual 
lesson of his cure. Evidently, his paralysis had been 
due to some habit of sin, and he must be freed from 
this. He at once rewarded our Lord by informing the 
Jews as to Who had healed him — which is another 
sign that he was as poor material as any of us. Can 
we not, then, believe with entire conviction, that our 
Saviour's Providence vigilantly provides for every 
need of our bodies and souls, as it did for this crippled 
brother of ours? . 

^an 60ujsft Cooperate SSiitl) 6oti 

The three of our Saviour's cures, wrought on the 
Sabbath, which are recorded in the Gospels, were all 
of impotence. They were, the healing of paralysis in 
the passage we are studying, of the withered hand, of 
the spirit of infirmity, and of the dropsy (St. Matt. 
xii:9ff. ; St. Luke xiiirioflF. ; St. Luke xiv:2flF.). 
The lesson is that man is to be, like God, a pure act 
of love, not for six days only, but for seven, in every 
week. On the Christian Sabbath, this energy of love 
will manifest itself in attendance at the great ap- 
pointed act of worship; the Blessed Eucharist. We can 
have no share with a God who works seven whole days 
a week, if we spend all of Sunday in rest and recrea- 
tion. 



98 SAINT JOHN 



The paralytic was made to participate in the instruc- 
tive miracle of his cure by three acts which our Lord 
carefully directed ; he was told to rise, take up his bed, 
and walk home with it. In this way he assisted in 
teaching the law of love's activity on the Sabbath, 
even, indeed, at the risk of his life, for the rabbinic 
law denounced death against any who carried a bur- 
den on that day. May not we help our Lord teach 
the reign of love on His day? 

After a time, the restored cripple sought Jesus in 
the crowd, and found Him not. Then he went into 
the temple, probably to make his thanksgiving, and 
there our Lord came to him. Not on the streets in 
the crowds, nor anywhere else will we find the I-XDrd of 
the Sabbath, as we shall meet Him in His House at 
the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving. 



%iXzt (Epip^ang 

l^t^at €]^rij3t Cannot Do 

*'The Son can do nothing of Himself,'' our Lord 
declared, ''except what He seeth the Father do, for 
what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son 
likewise, for the Father loveth the Son and showeth 
Him all things that Himself doeth." This statement 
appears at the beginning of the discourse, really a com- 
pact theological treatise, addressed to *'a small trained 
audience," probably the Sanhedrin {vv, 19-47). It 
expresses in simple words the absolute unity of Will 
and Mind in the Persons of the Godhead. It asserts 
not a limitation of Christ's Power, but an attribute of 
His Character as the Son of God. 



SAINT JOHN 99 



''I can of Mine Own Self do nothing/' he said in 
the same instruction; ''as I hear I judge/' This is 
again His Essential oneness with His Father. That 
His power is free from any real limitation appears 
from the fact that He had absolute dominion over His 
own human Life. ''No one taketh [My Life] from 
Me, but I lay it down of Myself/' He said (x: i8). 
Only God could claim thus to control His own fate 
without let or hindrance. So jealous, however, was 
He, of maintaining His relation of Sonship to His 
Father inviolate, that this assertion of His right to 
die for us 'of Himself stands alone, and even in this, 
He adds immediately that all would be done under 
His Father's commandment. 

Yet there are limitations imposed upon Christ's 
action by the free will of creatures. He was hindered 
from works of mercy by their unbeHef (St. Mark 
vi: 5). On the other hand. He declared that His love 
was constrained by the prayers of a Saint, so that He 
suspended His just punishment of the worshippers of 
the golden calf (Ex. xxxii:7-io). Thus, impossibili- 
ties for Christ are due always to the Love which is His 
Nature, except that one by which human unbelief 
stems the torrent of His mercy. 



after (EpipSanp 

€|)rii9t'i3 Sbarice 

Our Lord was like a miser, in the way He turned 
everything to account in gaining for Himself more 
treasures, that is disciples. Thus, He even employed 
the wonder which He aroused, by His miracles, in 



100 SAINT JOHN 



order to start souls in the path that would lead to 
perfect faith in Him. ''The Father/' he said to the 
Jews, 'Svill show the Son greater works than these, 
that ye may marvel." The signs of His Divine Power 
which He had shown them had failed to inspire even 
the first faint gleam of faith in their minds. Then He 
would perform still more stupendous miracles in the 
hope of arresting their attention, and ultimately sav- 
ing them. 

In His almost incredible eagerness for His creatures' 
love, He had constructed a kind of ladder of faith, as 
we can collect from St. John : First He led them to 
believe in His miracles as genuine signs of His Holi- 
ness, Love and Power. Next, they would naturally 
'believe Him,' that is His testimony, "for the very 
works' sake." Then, they would go on to take His 
word for His truthfulness, on the basis, now, of His 
Personal Perfection. Another step upward, and they 
would believe in His Name, Jesus Christ, the anointed 
Saviour. Finally they would arrive at the highest 
and truest faith, belief ''into Him." This involved 
complete self-surrender, and the acceptance explicitly 
of what He had taught and implicitly of all that He 
would subsequently reveal. 

The character of this faith He so ardently craved 
appears from the one instance of the appearance in the 
other Gospels of the phrase by which St. John always 
distinguishes it (St. Matt. xviii:6). There our Lord 
speaks of the "little ones" who "believe into Him/' 
Let us satisfy His dear covetous Heart by giving Him 
the unquestioning faith of children in all the great 
fnysteries He has revealed to His Church. 



SAINT JOHN 101 



ifor X^t JFour '^^t^ JFoIIohJtns* Read St. John v : 21-47 

jfouttfi fe^untiap acttt (Kpipfianp 

eri^rij3t'^ JuUgmrnt 

It must have occurred to us all in reading the Fourth 
Gospel, that the office of judging the world is assigned 
in one place to the Father, in another to the Son of 
Man, and in a third to the Word of our Lord (xii: 
47 f. ; N\22\ xii:48f.). The apparent contradiction 
of these passages raises a question which is aggravated 
by the fact that our Lord also ascribes the Judgment 
to the Apostles, and St. Paul to the Saints (St. Matt, 
xix: 28; I Cor. vi : 2). 

The solution of the problem lies in the method of 
the judgment. Souls will know their fate, at the last, 
by simply coming into the Presence of the Father, the 
Son and Their Saints. By the sheer fact of what They 
are They will judge who appear before them. 

The truth of this explanation will appear more 
clearly, if we consider how our Lord continually 
judged souls on earth. His every word, whether or 
not it was meant to rebuke, awoke penitence or re- 
morse, devotion or hatred. His miracles, like the 
draught of fishes which pierced St. Peter with such 
poignant self-reproach (St. Luke v: 8), inevitably laid 
bare the secrets of hearts. He looked upon the Rich 
Young Man with such great love, that he went away' 
very sorrowful over the ''great refusal" he had made- 
But most of all Jesus judged souls by what He was. 
We ourselves know people, who, not only by word or 
deed or look, but by their very presence silently, un- 
consciously condemn what is evil in us. How much 
more surely does the Son of Man judge the whole 
human race as it passes before His tribunal! Men 



102 SAINT JOHN 



deny the Last Judgment, but that is only the finale of 
a series which they cannot deny, for it began witk 
the appearance in the world of the Incarnate God, 
and is going on day by day. It is the fashion in our 
time for everyone to jndge Christ. Let us live in the 
recollection of the fact that He is daily, hourly, judg- 
ing us. , 

QponDap !aftett§e iourt§ ^unfiap 
actft (Eptp^anp 

®|)e ^ttJO IReeurrectionjs 

If we observe carefully, we find that our Lord 
revealed to the Sanhedrin, in the passage we are study- 
ing, that there is a spiritual resurrection during this 
present life {w, 21-27), as well as that bodily resur- 
rection to which we will come at the last {vv. 28 f.j. 
'The hour is coming, and now is," he solemnly de- 
clared to them, ''when the dead shall hear the voice 
of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.'' 
This is very diflferent from that hour which is "com- 
ing," — He does not say "and now is" — " in the which 
all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall 
come forth," the good unto the resurrection of life 
and the evil unto the resurrection of damnation. Men 
are not constrained to hear Jesus' voice summoning 
them to the spiritual resurrection ; they cannot choose 
but hearken when He calls them forth from their 
graves at the last day. 

This then is what our Baptism meant, our resurrec- 
tion from death into eternal life. Jesus Christ is reign- 
ing in our midst. Our archenemy has been so chained 
that he can deceive us no more. Already we may share 



SAINT JOHN 103 



the peace and joy of our Saviour, seeing Him with our 
spiritual eyes (Rev. xx : 1-4; St. John xiv : 19). 

But one thing is needed to secure to us all the 
precious things of our spiritual resurrection, and that 
is the recollection of our union with our King. A 
missionary tells us of a woman in China, a Buddhist 
who, poor heathen as she was, may teach us the hap- 
piness of abiding in Jesus' Presence. She was the 
head of an orphanage v/hich was about to be attacked 
by soldiers in one of the recent revolutions. Her in- 
vocations of Buddha had proved fruitless. The car- 
nage in the streets around her institution was drav/ing 
ever closer, and in a little while she and 500 children 
would be slaughtered for the sake of their store of rice. 
In despair she bethought herself of a little New Testa- 
m.ent in Chinese and sitting down she began to read it. 
Imm.ediately she realized that there VN^as a Presence 
behind her, powerful and loving enough to protect her 
against all her enemies. All night long she read, and 
all night there was One Who spread His Wing over 
her. In the morning she found that not even the plas- 
ter of the orphanage walls had been marred. But 
why should she, while yet a pagan, enjoy our Lord, 
and we never realize that in His Presence is the ful- 
ness of joy and pleasure forevermore (Ps. xvi : 11) ? 

Sifter (gpip&an? 

/f^atural Kcbclationg of <5oli 

When Christ rebuked the Jews because they had 
neither heard the Father's Voice at any time, nor seen 
his Shape, nor had His Word abiding in them, He 
complained of actual failures to practice the Presence 



104 SAINT JOHN 



of God in three ways which were perfectly practical 
for them. They ought to have heard His Voice in 
history, particularly that of their own people in which 
His guidance was so remarkably evident. Then, they 
would have realized that the whole world had been 
prepared for the Incarnation, by the universal spread 
of the Greek language and philosophy and of Roman 
civilization. But are not we Christians obnoxious to 
His criticism in this regard? We give over secular 
history, even that which closely touches the Catholic 
claims of the Anglican Communion, to seculars whose 
interpretation is too often thoroughly pagan. Nor 
have we realized, any more perfectly than did the Jews, 
our obligation to discern the Divine Presence imma- 
nent in the history of our race. 

The Form of God should appear to our eyes behind 
the sacramental veil of Nature. The thunder is His 
Voice, ''manifesting the ardor of His wrath against 
iniquity'' (Job xxxvi:33, literally translated). ''Lift 
up a stone and I am there," He says to His children. 
In a word, 

''Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God.'' 

How sacred our whole environment would be if only 
we saw the Father's "Shape" everywhere ! 

His Word, also, ought to abide in our conscience, 
which means, of course, that we must obey it habitual- 
ly. For a conscience which continually regards the 
Divine Will becomes continually clearer; and the con- 
science is simply the intellect engaged in one of its 
activities. Our mind, therefore, by filial submission 
to our Father's Word, will become always better able 
to see Him, in the Beatific Vision, throughout eternity. 



SAINT JOHN 105 



WHelimgtiap afttr i|)e ifourt& &untiap 
after (EpipSan? 

(External (^dps to !LobE 

The Jews had a complete system of devotional helps 
by which God intended that they should receive into 
their hearts more and more love for Him. There were 
the tefillin, small metal cases containing the great 
primal text of their religion, 'Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy might." These were worn strapped upon 
the arm and upon the forehead, at prayer, according 
to their interpretation of the Divine command (Deut. 
vi:4-8). A similar case called the mezuza was in- 
serted in the door-frame, and the careful Israelite 
always touched the facing as he entered, in order to 
remind himself of the precept of love enshrined there. 
Finally, the knotted fringe of the prayer shawls, the 
zizith, were also intended to commemorate God's com- 
mand to love Him (Deut. vi : 9 ; Num. xv : 37 ff.) • 

We cannot doubt that God was at least willing to 
have His people remind themselves by these devotional 
objects, of their obligation to love Him. For Christ 
must have used the customary ritual signs of His peo- 
ple continually. There is, it seems, evidence that He 
wore the zizith, for it was this which the woman with 
the issue touched in order to be healed (St. Luke viii: 
44). Surely, therefore, it is proper^for us to use such 
devotional helps as sacred pictures in our houses and 
to wear a cross or a crucifix, concealed it may be, in 
order to stimulate the love of God in our hearts. 

We must, however, bear constantly in mind that 
ritual, even though it has the sanction of our Lord and 
His Church, is only a means whereby we may grow in 



106 SAINT JOHN 



divine charity. To the Jews, after all their devotional 
advantages, our Lord gave that stern, sorrov^ful re- 
buke, ''I know you, that ye have not the love of God 
in you." Let us use sacred objects as He did, always 
as a means of concentrating imagination, mind and 
will upon God. . 

JFor t|)e ^%itt Oag!3 JFoIIohJtno;* Read St. John vi : 1-23 

acut (Epipfeang 

Wot Wc^uz JFea^t?3 ©robttietJ b? Hobe 

Our Saviour may be said to have divided His Min- 
istry into three parts, and He concluded all of these 
with feasts. The first was His Galilean Ministry, 
which ended with the feeding of the five thousand. 
The humble barley bread of the peasants with little 
fish from the lake was the food which our Lord mul- 
tiplied, and gave to Israelites only, as their Messiah. 
He provided but a single meal, for the people were 
near their homes or lodgings; and the Twelve gath- 
ered together only fragments enough to fill their little 
wicker wallets with store sufficient for their next 
repast. 

In contrast with this miracle, in many details, is the 
feeding of the four thousand, which ended the min- 
istry in Decapolis. Seven wheaten loaves were used, 
and our Lord, as the Son of Man, provided the feast 
for a multitude largely composed of Gentiles. Evi- 
dently, too. He gave them an ample supply for their 
long journey homeward (St. Matt, xv: 32 flF.). More- 
over, the Apostles filled seven hampers full of the 
broken food, for they were sojourning in the wilder- 
ness and must provide for many days. 



SAINT JOHN 



The third Banquet was the Gift of Love which 
crowned the Judean Ministry, and in one way consum- 
mated Christ's w^hole work in the world. This was 
the Blessed Eucharist, by which as the High Priest 
of the Catholic Church He feeds five hundred millions 
with the very Bread of Heaven. For He must 
strengthen His Own for their journey of life through 
the wilderness of this world. 



actrr C^pip&ang 

^l)e jForeisljaUotoinG of X\}t IDIcjaseli ^acramrnt 

The miraculous feeding of the five thousand is the 
only one of our Lord's miracles narrated by the other 
three Gospels and included also in the Fourth. Prob- 
ably St. John's reason for making this exception to his 
usual rule of not repeating what His fellow Evangel- 
ists have recorded for us was that the miracle was of 
extraordinary value as a type of Holy Communion. 
He is at great pains to tell us how apparently inade- 
quate w^ere the materials. The buns were of the 
despised barley flour, the fish were tiny, and both these 
were simply the luncheon of a little lad. It is as if he 
would urge that the poverty of the wafers and wine 
•on the altar is no greater than that of the means used 
by Jesus for the feeding of many thousand. 

The people sat down in orderly ranks (St. Mark 
vi : 40), evidently expecting a full meal, although there 
-was apparently nothing for them to eat. Does it not 
suggest to us St. John's congregation waiting for the 
Banquet of Love, their kneeling posture and extended 
hands indicating that they expect to fill their souls with 



108 SAINT JOHN 



Him who is the Bread of Heaven, while yet the altar 
seems to be supplied with nought but a little bread 
and wine? 

Lastly, in the first three Gospels Jesus is said to have 
''blessed" the bread and fish, but St. John speaks of 
Him as multiplying the food by ''giving thanks" over 
it (St. Matt, xiv: 19; St. Mark vi:4i; St. Luke ix: 
16; St. John vi: 11, 23). Now, this act of saying grace 
before the meal was characteristic of the father of a 
family. And it is in Holy Communion that the Incar- 
nate Lord redeems that promise of His, "I will not 
leave you orphans; I will come to you'' (xiv: 18, A. V, 
Marg.). When He had given them the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, for the first time He called them His "little chil- 
dren" (xiii: 33). Thus, while Jesus is our Brother in 
the "household of God," in the Holy Communion He 
is also our Father since He gives us His own Hu- 
manity. , 

Satttttiap after X\t jFouttJ &untiap 
attet (Epipfianp 

C]S)ns5t'}5 Diiicipline 

The storm which is described by St. John appears 
also in the parallel accounts of two previous Gospels^ 
St. Matthew and St. Mark (xiv:23flf.; vi:46ff.). It 
had impressed itself deeply upon the Apostolic band 
by reason, not only of the danger, but of the blessed 
discipline of which it was the occasion. They had 
started in a northwesterly direction across the lake 
and the gale was blowing from that quarter, in their 
very teeth, so that they were "wallowing" in the sea 
and making no headway. Then, it must have seemed 
a strange way in which they were being given their 



SAINT JOHN 109 



promised rest (St. Mark vi: 31), besides being a use- 
less venture, for they were leaving behind the oppor- 
tunity of making Jesus king. Worst of all they were 
alone, an element of their trouble which all three ac- 
<:ounts emphasize. Surely they must have been great- 
ly tempted to think that either Jesus' wisdom or His 
power had failed them at last. 

Throughout the long, stormy night. He had been 
praying for strength to be the Saviour, rather than 
an earthly king. Probably the Apostles had not wait- 
ed for Him but had started across the lake, thinking 
that He must have preceded them. From His position 
on the mountain. He saw them ''toiling in rowing'' 
(St. Mark vi: 48). The expressive word for ''toiling" 
in the original is that used of testing by torture. And 
yet he waited until the fourth watch, the black hour 
just before the dawn, in order to discipline and develop 
their faith in Him. At last, in the gray dawn they 
saw Him coming to them over the waves, now visible 
on the summit of a billow, now lost in the deep trough 
of the sea, again mounting the crest of a wave like 
some majestic spirit, and then again hidden by a cloud 
of spray. When they had received Him in the boat 
immediately it was at the port for which they were 
making. 

St. John has grouped this "sign" together with that 
of the feeding of the five thousand, because both 
taught the Apostles new convictions of Jesus' power 
over physical nature. "He can support men though 
visible means fall short. He is with His Disciples 
though they do not recognize or see Him." Thus their 
minds were prepared for the instruction which imme- 
diately followed on the Blessed Sacrament. For it 
was evident that He Who could compel wind and 



110 SAINT JOHN 



wave to do His bidding could also feed them with His 
own precious Body. If He could surmount every 
impasse of physical nature to be with them in the 
midst of the lake, surely no natural law could bar Him 
out from the midst of His toiling Church on earth. 

W^t iFiftI) Mfeefe lifter (Bpipi^an^ Read St. John vi : 24-71 

C!)ri!3t Oirectins ?eal 

The people who followed our Saviour on His return 
to Capernaum were the most zealous of those enthu- 
siastic Galileans who had attempted to make Him their 
king by force. They had proved their devotion by 
continuing to watch for Him through the whole night 
after He had withdrawn. Our Lord appreciated their 
keen interest, so greatly, in fact, that He prefaced His 
instruction on the Blessed Sacrament by a discourse 
on true belief in Him. Immediately that He saw them, 
He rewarded them with His great fundamental lesson 
that His people must seek Him primarily, rather than 
His gifts {v. 26). As Ven. Bede says, on this verse, 
''Christ flees from those who seek Him for something 
besides His own sake/' 

He then set before them two objects for which to 
work. First, they were to ''labor, not for the food 
which perisheth, but for that Food which endureth 
unto eternal life,'' which He would give them. Thus, 
He would have His followers zealous in their prepara- 
tion for the Blessed Sacrament. Would it not conse- 
crate the routine of our every-day life if we performed 
our tasks, as well as said our prayers, in preparation 
for our next Communion? "It was the Altar that 



SAINT JOHN 111 



drew me/' says Mr. R. J. Campbell, and many another^ 
like him, has been attracted to the Church by the Sac- 
rament of Love. But how often the devotion of these 
converts puts our coldness to the blush ! 

Secondly, Jesus directed the Galileans that they 
must work in order to believe ''into Him'' {y. 29). 
Have we realized that faith is the reward of spiritual 
labor, with the stimulus and the assistance of Divine 
grace? Not only must we strive for it, and for more 
and more of it, but when we have gained it, we shall 
often find it a burden which we are tempted to cast 
off. But we must remember that it is the ''work of 
God!' And, by a growing faith in the Mysteries of 
the Altar, we merit the first and the last Beatitudes, 
both of which are for faith in the unseen verities of 
our religion (St. Luke i:4i f. ; St. John xx:29). 



after (Cpip^an? 

C|)rigit tl)e %^\^n of <Soti to C^is I^rople 

The Galileans who were disposed to believe our 
Lord demanded that He show them a "sign from 
Heaven," by which they meant some miraculous ma- 
terial gift like manna. In answer, Jesus pointed to 
Himself as God's Sign to His people. "Ye have seen 
Me'/ he said {v. 36). To their Jewish minds. His 
Words meant that He was Immanuel, the Sign long 
since promised to Israel (Isa. vii: 14). But we Chris- 
tians know Him also as the Sign which is being every- 
where "spoken against," and which shall appear in 
Heaven when the Son of Man shall come to Judg- 
ment (St. Luke ii:34; St. Matt. xxiv:3o). Surely 



112 SAINT JOHN 



God could not have given us a sign of His infinite love 
more convincing than His Incarnate Son, except in- 
deed the Blessed Sacrament wherein even the Human- 
ity of God is hidden under the humble veils of our 
food. 

Blind and reluctant as these inquirers were, our 
Lord's boundless charity toward them never for a 
moment flagged. ''Him who is coming to Me I will 
in no wise cast out/' He told them, with yearning love 
(v, 2)7, literally translated). He meant to assure them 
that His welcome would meet their advancing faith 
half way, as, in the parable of the prodigal son, the 
father went to embrace the boy when he was yet afar 
off (St. Luke xv: 20). 

It will help us to understand this quality in our 
Lord's love, if we see it illustrated in the conversion 
of a certain woman, who has ever since given herself 
to the service of His poor brethren. When she was a 
baptized Unitarian she was drawn to the Blessed 
Eucharist, and for two years attended, of course with- 
out communicating. At last a Sunday came when she 
felt so irresistibly drawn to receive our Lord that she 
determined to go forward for the Blessed Sacrament. 
But He was beforehand with her, gently restraining 
her from approaching the altar, and leading her in- 
stead to stand up, and, for the first time in her life, 
recite the creed. How it was wrought she under- 
stands not. Only she knows that Jesus came to meet 
her very first advance, when she "was yet a great way 
off," and clasped her to His breast. 



SAINT JOHN 113 



$|Panna anti i^ol? Communion 

During His discourse on faith, our Lord was, it 
seems, standing before the door of the synagogue in 
Capernaum, which, perhaps alone among all the syna- 
gogues of the world, was surmounted by a representa- 
tion of the pot of manna, instead of the usual seven- 
branched candlestick. Later (at v, 41), He appears to 
have entered the synagogue and there preached His 
sermon on the Blessed Sacrament {w. 48-63). All 
the more naturally from this image of the manna, it 
occurred to the Jews to compare our Lord with Moses. 
Could Jesus show them as great a proof of His author- 
ity from God as the food which Moses had obtained 
from Heaven for their forefathers in the wilderness? 

Certainly, the miracle of the loaves and fishes could 
not claim to be as great as that of the manna. For 
that ''bread from Heaven" had flavors of both oil and 
honey (Num. xi:8; Ex. xvi:3i), and was therefore 
far superior to humble barley bread. Moreover, bread 
taken from the Heavenly treasury was surely better 
than any made on earth. Finally, it required more 
Divine power to feed six hundred thousand warriors 
six times a week for forty years, than to provide five 
thousand with just one meal. 

But the ''true Bread from Heaven'' which is the 
Blessed Sacrament, has these properties, as St. Chry- 
sostom explains to us, which make it infinitely more 
blessed than the manna : ( i ) It cometh down contin- 
ually; (2) It feeds all the world, not one nation only; 
(3) It gives, not nourishment only, but eternal life 
(w. 33, 51). 



H4 SAINT JOHN 



aaietiiU0lia? Mitt t^e SiitX\ feunHap 
SlfUr (Cptp&an? 

"S^ljf JFruit of t|)e IPaisiaion 

When Jesus was sent to illuminate and save us, He 
was ^'sealed" by the Father {v, 2y). In Jewish ears, 
this meant that He had been solemnly set apart and 
authenticated, as the lambs in the temple were ap- 
prored by the seal of the priests, in token that they 
were fit for sacrifice. Thus there is a wealth of mean- 
ing in this saying of our Lord. The Father had 
''sealed'' Him by miracles as His own son, ordained 
to be the Sacrificial Victim for man's sin. And when, 
presently, He promised to give His Body and Blood 
for the Food of souls, they rightly understood Him to 
mean that in some mysterious way His people were to 
feed upon Him as the Lamb of God, slain upon the 
Altar of the Cross. 

Moreover, this conception of the Blessed Sacrament, 
by which it brings to us the crucified Christ, is em- 
phasized by the fact that our Lord throughout the 
discourse uses the word "Flesh," rather than ''Body/' 
for His sacred Humanity. The commentators agree 
that His intention in this was to suggest His Passion, 
and that the thought was further accentuated by His 
promise that we should drink His precious Blood {v. 
54). Thus, when He said, "The Bread that I will 
give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the 
world," He wanted us to understand that the life which 
we receive in Holy Communion is the fruit of His 
Death. 

Still again, He has selected a very unusual word for 
'eating,' in the most solemn part of His instruction 
{w, 54 fF.). It expresses "not only the simple fact of 



SAINT JOHN 115 



eating, but the process as that which is dwelt upon 
with pleasure/' There are only two other places in 
the New Testament in which this word is found. One 
is where Christ was speaking of the godless sensuality 
which characterized mankind immediately before the 
flood, and the other is in His quotation with reference 
to Judas of the words ''he that eateth My bread hath 
lifted up his heel against Me" (St. Matt, xxiv: 38; St 
John xiii: 18). It appears, therefore, that our Lord 
expected us to find an antidote against the pagan self- 
indulgence around us, and against unfaithfulness to 
Him, like that of Judas, in the happiness of our Com- 
munion. X 

9 

jactet (Epip^ang 

3fe0uj5* Hiff (Siben ®:^rous|) t|)e IDIeisiafeli Sacrament 

Volumxcs have been written on the Sixth Chapter of 
St. John, but we can hope to point out here only the 
principal glories of Holy Communion which our Lord 
reveals in it. That Blessed Sacrament is Bread Which 
"(continually) cometh down from Heaven,'' so that 
the supply of the life-principle it brings will continue 
as long as there is a soul on earth to receive it. He 
who eats of this Bread, moreover, ''shall live forever" ; 
for physical dissolution is a negligible thing to the 
communicant, since Jesus will pass with his spirit 
through death to immortality. His body also is to be 
'raised up at the last day' full of eternal health and 
radiance, because he has fed upon that Flesh and 
Blood of which the Life cannot be holden by death. 
Finally his union with Jesus through the Blessed Sac- 
rament is so perfect that it is comparable to nothing 



116 SAINT JOHN 



lower than the relation of the Son to the Father in 
the Blessed Trinity. (Cp. w. 50-57.) 

Our communions must be especially dear to us, 
moreover, because in them our Lord in His great love 
condescends to touch our poor stained soul with His 
Immaculate Soul. ''It is the Spirit that quickeneth/' 
He declared, ''the Flesh profiteth nothing." Only for 
a moment is that blessed contact maintained, but it is 
long enough for Him to fill us to our utmost capacity 
with "quickening" spiritual life. 

"He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood," 
He said, "abideth in Me, and I in him." For Jesus is 
both the center, and the circumference, of the com- 
municant's life. We glimpse the preciousness to St. 
John of this thought from the fact that the expres- 
sion "abide in Christ" is peculiar, to Him. The lonely 
old man, homeless, and a wanderer, when not a pris- 
oner in the quarries of Patmos, found an abiding place 
of utter happiness in Jesus' heart through his com- 
munions. V 

jFridap after t|)e jFiftfi feuntiap 
after (Epip&anp 

Ibtixzi in t|?e "BleieDseti ^Sacrament 

What was it which created the line of cleavage so 
plainly to be seen in the passage before us, between 
those who rejected and those who accepted Christ's 
teaching? Fundamentally, it was because they fol- 
lowed opposite rules of faith. The one group insisted 
:Upon asking ''how' our Lord's revelations could be 
true. Thus they demanded to know how He could 
say that He had come down from Heaven, since they 
•knew Him as a Nazarene, and hozv He could Sfive them 



SAINT JOHN \\1 



His Flesh to eat. In the end these helped to crucify 
our Lord. The Twelve, on the contrary, adopted the 
rule thus expressed by St. Peter: ''We have believed 
and have come to know." After their example, the 
Church has always taught her children to believe first 
of all on her authority, and afterwards to learn the 
reasons for the faith which is in them. 

The operation of the two rules is excellently illus^ 
trated by the way in which our Lord's teaching about 
the Sacrament of Love was received. The Jews said 
of that most gracious revelation, This is a repulsive 
saying. Who can hear it [with patience]'? {v. 60). 
But the Apostles believed Jesus when He said that His 
words were ''spirit and life," — that they revealed what 
belongs to the spiritual order and gives life to man. 
Accordingly to them His Teachings about the great 
Mystery were "words of eternal life" {v. 68). 

The reward of believing on our Lord's Word what 
we cannot fully understand, appears from the mag- 
nificent gain in their knowledge of Christ's Persor^ 
which was given to the Apostles, because they had ac- 
cepted the revelation of the Holy Sacrament. Before' 
this, they had by their representative, St. Peter, con- 
fessed Christ as "the Son of God" (St. Matt, xiv: 33).- 
Their conception of Him then was, however, mainly 
of His office and prerogatives. Now they knew Him 
as "the Holy One of God." They were still to ad- 
vance to the glory of their confession that He was 
"the Christ, the Son of the living God" (St. Matt, xvi^ 
16). Thus step by step they progressed, first believ- 
ing^ and subsequently by experience, coming to know 
the truth they had accepted (v. 69 R. V.)- 



118 SAINT JOHN 



mxtt (Epip^anp 

©erjjeberance in J&ol? Communion 

'Then said Jesus unto the Twelve, would ye also 
go?' He implies wistfully, that they will answer 
"No" ! Nor was He disappointed, for St. Peter, speak- 
ing for the Apostles, not only declared, in effect, that 
they would steadfastly follow their Master, but gave 
three great reasons for their perseverance : ( i ) There 
was no one else they could go to; (2) \i there were 
another, Christ had all they needed, — the doctrines of 
"eternal life''; (3) In fact, there was but one Messiah, 
Jesus, the Holy One of God. Now all of these are in 
substance compelling arguments for cleaving to Him 
in the Blessed Sacrament. 

Again, our Lord warned the Jews that if they would 
not accept His teaching about the Bread of Heaven, 
they would remain unprepared for the yet more diffi- 
cult Mystery of His Passion. If the doctrine of the 
Sacrament of Love "caused them to stumble," because 
they were too proud to receive the Life from God 
through the Nazarene, how could they believe in Him 
as their Messiah, when they would see Him "ascend up 
where He was before" by the way of the shameful 
Cross {y.62)'^. Even so, does our Lord, by Holy Com- 
munion, prepare us for coming trials of our faith. 

The two groups, of the Jews and of the Twelve, 
stood at the parting of the ways. As the Apostles 
gained a glorious new vision of Jesus' Holiness, the 
Jews "went back to the things of the past," as the 
Greek means, that is, from faith and virtue, so far as 
they had gained them, to past unbelief and sin. There 
are two ways, in which a disciple of Christ may "go 



SAINT JOHN 119 



to the rear''; one is to retire from Satan's dominion, 
and fall in behind Jesus, as St. Peter once did (St. 
Matt, xvi: 23) ; and the other is to go back from fel- 
lowship with Jesus and line up behind Satan. Then, 
let us never lapse from union with our Lord, but ever 
hold fast by Him in the Holy Mysteries. 

W^t ^\%X^ Witi^ after (Kpip|)an^ Read St. John vii 

W^z fetetS &ttnliap mitt (Epip&anp 

Ct)ri0t*j3 Conberjsion of (^ii3 2Dton C^ouseljollr 

Our Lord's brethren were His collateral relatives; 
those whose names we know were very probably His 
cousins. The ordinary Catholic opinion is that three 
of these latter were the Apostles, SS. James, Jude and 
Simon. The development of their faith in Him was 
indeed very slow. At one time they seem to have 
thought that ''He was beside Himself" (St. Mark iii: 
21). Even after they were chosen among the Twelve, 
they had for long the conception of our Saviour that 
He was the Messiah of the rabbinic tradition, a great 
temporal ruler who would ''restore again the kingdom 
to Israel," — an idea which persisted among the Twelve 
until the Ascension (Acts i:6). 

Probably it was St. Jude who, in our passage for 
study, presumed to urge our Lord to leave the coun- 
try and go up to Jerusalem, in order that the whole 
Jewish world, assembled at the Feast, might see His 
miracles {vv, 3 f.). For it was Jude who, on the 
night before the Passion, again asked our Lord why 
it was that He would not manifest Himself to the 
world (xiv: 22), asserting the same difficulty as on the 
occasion we are considering. 



120 SAINT JOHN 



Both times, his perplexity arose from the very fact 
that he beHeved in our Lord's Messianic authority and 
miraculous powers. Yet, it is evident that he and his 
brethren had not reached the spiritual development 
of many other disciples. For they did not believe "into 
Him'' {y, 5). It was easier for Him to convert neigh- 
bors like SS. Philip and Peter and John, than members 
of His own household. It is, in fact, perhaps the 
highest proof of His Deity that He succeeded in con- 
vincing His brethren that He was, not only good, but 
God. For the members of His household suffered 
from the same blindness which afflicts members of the 
Church, very often ; they were so familiar with Divine 
Things, that they failed to appreciate them. 



a^on&ap after tSe &f Jt6 feunliaj aftet (Epfpfian? 

^\)iW^ {^umblenp00 

As our gentle Master saw that the assertion of His 
Divine claims was offensive to the Jews, He sought to 
reduce the external majesty of His approach to Jeru- 
salem as much as possible. On His first visit to the 
Holy City as Messiah, He appeared with authority to 
cleanse the temple, and wrought great ''signs" of Di- 
vine power (ii: 13-23). When He returned to His 
Capital the second time, it was as a simple pilgrim 
with a multitude of others (v: i). But on this third 
occasion He went up "unto the feast, not openly, but 
as it were in secret," that is, apart from the pilgrim- 
company, alone, like a solitary stranger. When at last, 
on Palm Sunday, He must for the sake of His people 
assert His Kingship, he yet approached the City with 
ererjr mark of humility. 



SAINT JOHN 121 



Moreover, He adopted a new method of appealing 
to those higher classes in Jerusalem who were His 
main enemies. He had come to them once as Messiah, 
seeking only to purify His people, and again as *'the 
Son," claiming the privilege of laboring for them 
without respite, and both times they had rejected Him. 
Now He sought to appeal to them as a man of letters, 
displaying perfect familiarity with the culture of the 
day, such as was ordinarily known only to the scholars 
of the rabbinic colleges {v. 15). Perhaps they would 
accept the truth, if it came to them under the form 
of brilliant eloquence. Therefore He stood forth, in 
the temple, as a Teacher. 

Yet He was instant in turning away the praise 
which even the Jews accorded Him. *'My teaching," 
He answered, ''is not Mine, but His that sent Me," 
and He went on to say that He was seeking the glory 
of the Father, not His own glory {yv. 16, 18, R. V.), 
and He strove to show the Jews that this humble atti- 
tude, which they knew very well was characteristic of 
Him, was one of His credentials as the true Son of 
God {v, 18). Thus, in this third way. He sought to 
win the Jews by humility. In His quest of our souls, 
too. He uses every ingenious art, but all His devices 
bear the one hall-mark of His Lowliness. 

<a[tteg(liap after tSe &ijt8 &ttnliap 
after (EpipSanp 

C|)rijst 60afeinc ^}3 aKM^oIc 

Our Saviour is able to make a man "every whit 
whole" (v. 23). His purpose is to bring our entire 
nature to a state of perfect health, and He accom- 
plishes this through the sanctification of our will. We 



122 SAINT JOHN 



can hardly emphasize this fact too strongly, for otiF 
mind, our spirit and even our body will be consecrated, 
if our will is dedicated to our Lord. As to our mind, 
He has told us in no uncertain terms that he who 'will- 
eth to do God's Will shall know of the teaching, 
whether it be of God/ By every righteous choice, 
therefore, by every obedience to the moral law and by 
every deed of love, we open our intellect to illumina- 
tion from Heaven. ''To those who obey Him, whether 
they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the 
toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass 
through in His fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery 
they shall learn in their own experience who He is." 

Our spiritual state, also, depends, not upon our emo- 
tional fervor or our intellectual attainments, but upon 
what we will to be the supreme object of our life. 
For our Lord said that he who seeketh His glory that 
sent him, "the same is true, and no unrighteousness is 
in him" (v, i8). We see in this the great impor- 
tance of each morning directing our intention for the 
works of the day to the glory of God. 

Our resurrection body will be exactly suited to the 
state of our soul at the last Judgment (v: 28 f.). And 
our soul will be saved, if our will, its determining 
faculty, is devoted to Jesus. The world is full of 
pieces of people, who are all mind, or all body. Let 
us give our wills to Jesus, and He will make us whok. 

Slfttt Cptpi^an? 

ULilt CrieiB of Jitgug 

We are told, in the Gospels, of four times when our 
Lord cried out, from a breaking Heart, pleading witS 



SAINT JOHN 123 



His people. Three of these occasions are recorded by 
St. John, two of them in the chapter before us. The 
first time He was thus stirred, it was because there 
were in His Presence some who had stopped half-way 
in their knowledge of Him {y, 28). In an agony of 
eager love for their souls, He sought to lead them on 
to belief in His Deity. Again, on the octave day of 
the Feast, He stood and cried, because the people 
around Him did not thirst for the living water of 
grace {v. 37). His own Soul had been filled to over- 
flowing with that precious life-principle for them, by 
fasts, prayers and deeds of love since His Babyhood, 
:and now they were famishing around Him and yet 
drawing back from Him in ignorance of their own 
need. 

The third occasion was immediately before the Pas- 
sion. When Christ knew that there were before Him 
disciples who believed, but secretly, because they loved 
the praise of men more than the praise of God, He 
cried out to them and besought them to believe 'into 
Him' (xii: 44). 

But it was when He cried the last time, from the 
Cross, that He began to receive the responses He had 
so longed for (St. Matt, xxvii: 50). His clear, strong 
Voice when He was dying proved to the half-believing 
centurion that He was indeed ''the Son of God." St. 
Nicodemus who had refused to seek from Him the 
living water in Holy Baptism, came forward now, and 
joined the faithful at His Feet. St. Joseph of Ari- 
mathea who had been His disciple, "but secretly for 
fear of the Jews," found courage at last to go openly 
and beg the Body of His Master. Is Jesus crying over 
us? Let us satisfy His dear, craving Love, by ac- 
cepting the truth, the sacrament, or the stigma of fel- 
lowship with Him, to which He is calling us. 



124 SAINT JOHN 



jattet (Cpiplian? 

Throughout the Fourth Gospel, our Lord refers to 
His Passion in the terms which in the three other 
Gospels are applied to the Resurrection and Ascen- 
sion (cp. vi:62). Evidently, St. John alone caught 
from Him this conception of His Crucifixion, as par- 
ticipating in the glory of His coming Enthronement in 
Heaven (vii:39). The dereliction and agony of His 
Cross were in Jesus' Mind transfigured by the Divine 
splendor of His Session at the Right Hand of the 
Father, to Which His Death was but the glorified 
Road (xiii : i). And surely He revealed to us this way 
of thinking about His own Death-bed, to teach us that 
His brethren should look beyond the mortification and 
suffering of physical death to the glory that awaits 
them, and should regard the eternal life, given to them 
at Baptism, as continuing and developing without any 
break into the joy and triumph of immortality (cp. 
vi:Sof.; viii:Si). 

But in considering His Passion as being one con- 
tinuous Act with His Resurrection and Ascension, our 
Lord did not minimize the glory which belonged pecu- 
liarly to the Sacrifice of Himself on the Cross. For by 
that perfect Penance for all the blasphemies of human 
sin, he satisfied the wounded Honor of God, and by 
that supreme Act of Obedience He made to the Father 
an Offering of infinite value. Rightly, therefore, did 
He pray that His Father would glorify Him in His 
Passion, that He might thus, by His Death, glorify 
the Father (xvii: i). Let us resolve that, when our 
time comes, we will offer our death to God as a finall 



SAINT JOHN 125 



penance for our sins, and one last obedience to His 
Will. 

Our Saviour longed for His glorification in Heaven, 
in order that He might help men in the world. For 
He would send the Holy Spirit to teach even His ob- 
stinate opponents the saving truth that He is God, and 
to illuminate the minds and consecrate the hearts of 
His own people ( viii : 28 ; xvi : 13 ; vii : 38 f . ) . Let us, 
by faithfulness in intercession, be practising to take 
our part in this Heavenly work of Jesus. 



matter Cpipfianp 

£Dur Horn Xt^z Smitten Kocfe 

On seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, it was 
the custom, to bring from the Pool of Siloam a golden 
pitcher full of water, which was poured out before the 
altar. But on the octave day, the pitcher was brought 
empty, while the twelfth chapter of Isaiah was being 
recited. It was in reference to this ceremony and to 
the words on their lips : 'the Lord Jehovah is my Sal- 
vation; therefore with joy shall ye draw water out 
of the Wells of Salvation,' that our Lord cried out, 
'*If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.'' 
When our souls are, like the golden pitcher, empty, 
we must come to our Lord and be filled. 

This ritual of the golden urn was meant to remind 
the people of the rock which followed Israel in the 
Wilderness and from w^hich the saving stream flowed 
forth to the famishing multitude, at the command of 
Moses (Num. xx:7-ii; i Cor. x:4). Our Saviour 
claimed this also as a type of Himself. Probably, His 



12^ SAINT JOHN 



hearers would remember also that the rock was smit- 
ten, sinfully; and in this way the symbolism would 
suggest that the stream of Hfe flows from a Messiah 
smitten by the sin of His people. It is this Crucified 
Saviour Who now follows the Catholic Church 
through the wilderness of the world. 

If, however, we receive the living water of grace 
from the Soul of Jesus, it must be with the resolution 
to render Him in return a very stream of loving deeds. 
For the ''drink" He gives us. He demands that ''riv- 
ers'' shall flow out of our heart {yv. 37 f.). But to 
the soul which thus multiplies the grace given it by 
the Holy Ghost out of the Smitten Rock, God "giveth 
not the Spirit by measure'' (iii : 34) . The only limit to 
the Gift of the Spirit of Grace is that which we set, 
if we receive Him in vain. 

&attttliap after tge &«t5 feunliap 
after (EpipSanp 

2Dur ilorti'0 ^uccejsis anH Duris for {^im 

It is one of our greatest debts of gratitude to St. 
John, that we learn from Him what we might not 
have understood from the other Evangelists, the fact 
of our Lord's success in converting His people. By 
observing how often in the Fourth Gospel it appears 
that *"many" believed "on," or "into," Him, we dis- 
cover that the number of His converts was very large 
and was constantly growing (e.g. t^. 31 ; viii:30; 
x:42). Five hundred brethren assembled to meet 
Him in Galilee after His Resurrection (i Cor. xv:6). 
The three thousand Jews baptized on the first Pente- 
cost, were very probably of that group of Christ's 



SAINT JOHN m 



hearers who had ''believed Him'' but who had never 
gone on to complete faith (Acts ii:4i; St. John viii: 
31, R. v.). There is, also, abundant evidence that 
the churches of Asia Minor were to a great extent 
made up of Christian Jews. Finally, St. Matthew's 
Gospel was written for that Evangelist's fellow-coun- 
trymen throughout the Universal Church. 

This success was gained by methods which seemed 
most absurd to the Jewish rulers of church and state 
{v, 48). Thus, they sneeringly suggested that our 
Lord might go unto the Dispersion, the Jews scattered 
over the Roman Empire, and from their colonies go 
forth to teach the Gentiles {v. 35). Yet this, which 
seemed to the Pharisees ''the climax of irrationality,'^ 
was the exact plan followed by the Apostolic Church 
with such remarkable success (cp. Acts xiii: 42 f.). 

Our service for our Lord will often, like His Min- 
istry, be according to spiritual business methods which 
do not commend themselves to the worldly wise. But 
we shall be effective for Him, none the less, if we are 
neither keeping His Life out of our souls nor selfishly 
seeking to keep it in, for Christ working through us 
must be successful. 

Septuageisima Witt^* Read St. John viii 

&fptttaa:e0ima 

C|)rii9t Wniiin^ on tl}z dtone0 

As we begin to prepare for Lent, we arriye at a 
passage in which our Lord indicates the sacredness of 
the whole Moral Law, and the danger of postponing 
conversion. For we read that He "stooped down, and 
with His Finger wrote on the ground'' {w. 6, 8). It 
would, however, be more literal to say that He wrote 



128 SAINT JOHN 



on the great flagstones which formed the pavement 
of the Temple. In so doing He probably meant to 
suggest the writing of the Ten Commandments on the 
two tables of stone by the Finger of God (Ex. 
xxxi: i8). 

Not only did he wish to impress upon the Jews, by 
this symbolic action, the sacredness of the Decalogue 
as a whole, but he meant to make them understand 
the truth that one commandment is as holy, and as in- 
violable, as another. In fact, pride, although it does 
not entail loss of men's esteem, proved to be more fatal 
in its effect upon the Pharisees, than was the breach 
of the seventh commandment upon the soul of Blessed 
Mary Magdalene (v:44; St. Luke viii:2). 

One other lesson our Lord gives us for our Sep- 
tuagesima in the way He treated the accusers of the 
unhappy woman {v, 7). For when He had said to 
them, ''He that is without sin among you, let him first 
cast a stone at her," they stole away ''one by one, be- 
ginning at the eldest." Evidently, they were self- 
convicted of sin great in proportion to the number 
of their years. Let them be an example to us that 
we do not grow good by growing old; but rather by 
those continual conversions of heart for which the 
Church provides us these seasons of penitence year by 
year. ^ 

a^ontiaj atfUr Septuage^fma 

^r^e Jlici&t of t|)e SKCCorHi 

A beautiful feature of the ceremonies during the 
Feast of Tabernacles was the lighting of the vast 
lamps which hung from the roof of the woman's court 
in the temple, on the first night of the octave. From 



SAINT JOHN 129 



Mount Moriah, the great chandeliers shed their ra- 
diance over all Jerusalem. But as our Lord stood 
beneath them in the twilight of the octave day, they 
remained unlighted, and it was then that He cried out, 
''I am the Light of the world" {y, 12). Thus, again 
we find Him carrying the Gentiles in His heart. For 
He declared Himself to be the Illuminator, not of 
Jerusalem, nor of that people, only, but of all human- 
kind. When life darkens around us and no human 
cheer will serve to drive away the gloom from our 
hearts, let us go directly to the Light of the World. 
The sorrow was sent to drive us to Him. 

There was in His words, moreover, a reference to 
the pillar of fire and cloud which had journeyed with 
the ancient people of God through the wilderness. 
Veiled within that ''luminous cloud" was the awful 
Presence of God, and by teaching the Apostles that it 
was a type of His Incarnation, Christ identified Him- 
self with Jehovah, and thus helped the Apostles to 
realize that He was truly Divine. In the very act of 
declaring Himself the Light of the World, He was 
illuminating His own. 

Now, God has ordained a lamp for His Christ 
(Ps. cxxxii: 17). Within everyone of us baptizeci 
Christians blazes the Dayspring of this world. He 
would fain shine through our lives, giving comfort to 
the afflicted and sorrowful, and persuading men of His 
Deity. Shall we not begin now, even before Lent, to 
cleanse the globe of His lamp ? 



10 



130 SAINT JOHN 



Uuf 0tids lactet ^eptuasedima 

Wc^z Supreme dBfampIe 

Our Lord spoke these sad words to the Jews : "Ye 
are from beneath, I am from above; ye are of this 
world, I am not of this world." They belonged to the 
lower, fleshly, sensual order, while He was from above, 
and was the center of that which is Heavenly and 
eternal. The difference between their natures was in- 
finitely great; and, from the perfect contrast between 
them, we can see with extraordinary clearness that the 
circumstances of earthly life give scope for the em- 
bodiment of two characters absolutely opposed. Be our 
part and lot on Jesus' side of that impassable gulf ! 

His perfect charity was allied with two other vir- 
tues, absolute fearlessness and invincible meekness, 
which are found combined among men only in His 
followers. His courage, which will appear more and 
more the nearer we approach His Passion, is exempli- 
fied in our present chapter by His choosing, for His 
instructions in the Temple, the treasury, because this 
was in the court of the women, close by the assembly 
room, of the Sanhedrin. Even after they had set a 
price upon His Head, He continued to stand there 
calmly, within easy striking distance of them, no doubt 
hoping that some word of love might pierce their hard 
hearts and save them. 

His meekness, also, appears from His reaction upon 
the stupidity and insults of the Jews. Thus, after He 
had again and again said that He had come from the 
Father, they misunderstood Him {y. 2y), Apparently, 
they thought that He was speaking of coming from 
another Messiah, who was the one they wanted. And 
when He warned them that they would die in their 



SAINT JOHN 131 



sins, and be forever separated from Him, they, with 
fearful blasphemy, retorted that He must be intending 
to commit suicide, and be lost in Hell (vv, 21 f.). 
Yet, according to the correct text, He went on, after 
repeatedly pleading with them in other ways, to beg 
them to serve the Father according to their own light, 
if they would not accept the revelation in Him, hop- 
ing that thus they might be led on to faith. *'Do ye 
the things which ye heard from the Father,'' He urged 
{v. 38, R. V. Marg.). Is it wonderful that such per- 
fect patience won all but the most wicked hearts? 



Qfllelinegfliap after &tptaaQ;t0ima 

practice of t|)e ©rejscnce of ^oH 

Our Saviour could always safely challenge even the 
Jews who hated Him to point out the slightest defect 
in His righteousness. But He longed to develop their 
admission of His perfection into a confession of His 
union with God. Accordingly, He said to them, **He 
that sent Me is with Me ; the Father hath not left Me 
alone, for I do always those things that please Him'' 
(z^. 29). In this way He tried to make them reason 
that His absolute faultlessness must be due to the fact 
that the Father was with Him. 'The perfect coinci- 
dence of the will of the Son with the will of the 
Father is presented as the effect, and not as the reason 
of the Father's presence." But if the righteousness of 
Jesus' Human Soul was due to His fellowship with 
the Father, how much more truly must we abide with 
God if we would be holy! Moreover, St. John de- 
mands that Christians do "those things that please" 
God, as our Lord always did. For he uses the Greek 



132 SAINT JOHN 



word with this meaning, which is found only in his 
writings in the New Testament, just once more and 
then to require of us the same perfect service (i St, 
John iii: 22). 

Yet, in the context before us, our Lord says that 
'whosoever committeth sin is the bondservant of sin' 
{y, 34). St. Paul and St. Peter also declare that the 
sinner is the slave of the evil thing which masters him 
(Rom. vi: 16; 2 St. Peter ii: 19). What one of us, 
then, is free to serve God, especially if we must meas- 
ure up to the standard of God's ''well-beloved Son''? 

We must let the Son abide always in our houses, and 
He will set us free {yv. 35 f.). In His Presence temp- 
tations cannot assail us, nor sins defile. He will make 
us ''free indeed'' for fellowship in His service. 

<a:t)nj3t*j5 j[|5urj3uit of J^ouljs 
In order to suggest His Deity in a way which would 
be the most appealmg and attractive to the Jews, our 
Lord, when He would speak of Himself as having 
absolute Being, frequently used the words "I am," 
which in Aramaic would suggest "Jehovah" (cp. w, 
24, 28, 58). His meaning was that in Him was per- 
fect light, life and strength. He united in Himself all 
finite and all infinite Beingf. As a further claim upon 
their devotion. He revealed Himself as the Mediator 
tjetween earth and Heaven, saying, 'The things which 
I heard from the Father, these speak I into the world" 
(v. 26, R, V. Marg.). In one way, He was, as it were, 
standing outside our universe, proclaiming the good 
tldins^s which came to Him from the Father, ''into the 
world," that is, unto its uttermost parts. 



SAINT JOHN 133 



But, while He was God, He took His place with the 
lowliest of mankind. ''Ye seek to kill Me,'' He pleaded 
with the Jews, ''a Man that hath told you the truth/' 
Here He uses the humblest possible word for His 
Humanity, for the Greek noun translated ''man'' means 
a common person or peasant, as distinguished from a 
gentleman. One marvels that any soul could resist the 
appeal of this God Who stooped so low to shoulder the 
burden of human life and human sin. 

It is His invincible hopefulness about human souls^ 
however, which most claims our adoring love. The 
Jews had just vented their anger upon Him by calling 
Him a Samaritan, and accusing Him of having a de- 
mon. Moreover, it appears by the form of the verbs 
that these insults were current and habitual ones. But 
our Lord only answered them by a yet more gracious 
offer of love. Now He promises that if they will keep 
His Word they shall never see death (v. 51 ; cp. v. 31). 
Let us then learn from our Lord's persistent appeals, 
even to His blasphemers, that no soul in the state of 
probation is beyond hope. 

Beeping <Soti'j3 MIoiti 

Our dear Lord promises us a very great and precious 
immunity, if only we will keep His Word. On this sole 
condition, that we obey the Gospel, we shall never 'be- 
hold death' (z;. 51). He did not say that Christians 
should never "taste of death," as the Jews falsely 
quoted Him (v. 52). The faithful must drink of His 
Cup ; but He has already "tasted death for every marf' 
and so has emptied the chalice of all its bitterness. To 



134 SAINT JOHN 



"behold death" means to gaze upon it ''with long, 
steady, exhaustive vision, whereby we become slowly 
acquainted with the nature of [it]/' This, which is 
the portion of the damned, shall never enter into the 
experience of Christ's faithful servants. 

Moreover, in requiring us to keep His Word, our 
Lord demanded no greater proof of loyalty to Him 
than He had abundantly given of faithfulness to His 
Father. ''I know Him and keep His word," He could 
say without fear of being contradicted even by His 
enemies {v. 55; cp. xv: 10). He knows the sufferings 
and temptations which beset obedience to God, and He 
will not fail His brethren either in sympathy or in 
powerful aid. 

Keeping the word of our Lord, however, implies 
much more than static faith and holiness. Jesus said 
to His enemies, ''Ye seek to kill Me, because My word 
maketh no progress in you" {v, 37, literally translated). 
The Gospel must have free course in our soul. If we 
should set an obstacle to its progress, we would cast it 
out of OUT life and with it crucify Jesus Christ over 
again to ourselves. 

3 

&aturlia? after ferptuaffesima 

W^z dpmpat|)p anti C^elp of t|)e ^aintjs 

"Your father Abraham exulted that he would see 
My day," our Lord solemnly declared to the Jews, 
"and the time came, that He saw it and was glad" (z/. 
56, literally translated). Two epoch-making events of 
the great patriarch's life in this world and after death 
are thus revealed to us : one, the great occasion when 
Jehovah promised him that he should see His Incama- 



SAINT JOHN 135 



tion, and the other, the first Christmas Day, when he 
actually ''saw" the Divine Baby in the Manger. In 
some mansion of his Heavenly Father's House, the 
vision of his Saviour's Birth came to him bringing its 
unspeakable joy. Almost all great authorities agree 
that this is the meaning of Christ's words. We are 
assured, therefore, that the blessed Saints are allowed 
to know what is passing in the Church on earth. We 
have additional evidence in the fact that, at the Trans- 
figuration of Jesus, Moses and Elijah spoke with Him 
''of His decease which He should accomplish at Jeru- 
salem" (St. Luke ix : 31). They had been informed of 
the events of His Life, and knew that He was ap- 
proaching His Passion, so that His dear Human Heart 
had cried out for their intelligent and loving fellow- 
ship. 

Surely, we poor pilgrim brethren of Christ also need 
the tender sympathy of His Saints. We ought to imi- 
tate their holy lives, and seek the aid of their prayers, 
certain that our Lord makes known our need to them 
and inspires their intercessions. If it be true, as the 
physicists say, that two atoms on the opposite sides of 
the universe attract each other, how much more must 
two souls in the Communion of Saints be drawn to- 
gether by the magnetic power of that Divine Love 
which dwells in both of them ! 

St. John alone remembered this saying of Christ 
that Abraham had seen His Nativity. The aged, 
broken Apostle, the last of the Twelve, breasting alone 
the torrent of Imperial persecution which threatened 
to annihilate the Church, found courage and gladness 
in the fellowship of his brethren, the Saints of both the 
Old Testament and the Grospel. 



136 SAINT JOHN 



fieieacceima l^eefe Read St. John ix 

6oIi t^e I^ure 9:ct of Hobe 

Immediately after He had been all but crushed un- 
der the stones which the Jews in the Temple would 
have cast at Him had He not escaped, our Lord pro- 
ceeded to a work of love. As He passed by the en- 
trance of the Temple, on His way out from the sacred 
precincts, ''He saw a man which was blind from his 
birth/' At once He determined to cure the unfortu- 
nate, and through him to seek once more the conver- 
sion of the very people who would have murdered Him 
a few moments before. The ''sign" would be widely 
known, for probably it was notorious all over Jerusa- 
lem that this beggar had borne his affliction all his life ; 
moreover, none of the Old Testament Saints had 
wrought the miracle of restoring sight ; and the proof 
of His Messianic power would be still more convinc- 
ing, because this blindness was congenital {y, 32). 

But our Lord leads us to see even more in His sign. 
For He declared to the Apostles that His act of love 
in healing the sightless eyes was but a manifestation 
of the works of God. His words reveal, as by a flash 
of light, the vast machinery of Divine Providence ever 
working out blessings for us behind the appearance of 
things. God is the perfect, infinite. Act of Love, and 
the Life of Jesus only showed openly to us what is, 
from eternity to eternity, the very Nature of God. 

Our Master mildly rebuked the Apostles for asking 
whether the beggar's condition was due to his sin or 
to that of his parents. We are not to waste time over 
intellectual queries and speculations about the origin 



SAINT JOHN 137 



of evil, but to cooperate with God in remedying it, 
that His works may be manifest to the world more 
and more. , 

9p0n6ap aftet &tiafl;t0ima 

€^|)e Dibine Hatog of ^crbice 

''We must work the works of Him that sent Me, 
while it is day/' Jesus said to His Apostles {v, 4, 
R. v.). Thus He included all His Christian brethren 
in His great labor for the salvation of the world. And 
this cooperation with our Master is to continue 
throughout the ''day" of Hfe, until the eventide of rest 
with Him. 

If we are to be partners with our Saviour, in His 
work for souls, we must practice His rules of service. 
First, He would never seek to be original in His teach- 
ing; every word was ascribed to His Father (vii: 16). 
Yet, His effectiveness was unparalleled. Even the 
police of the Sanhedrin failed in their mission to arrest 
Him, because 'never man spake like Him' (vii: 46). 
Again, He was so careful to maintain the true claims 
of God's ancient Church, that He was what many now 
would call narrow. Plainly, if most lovingly. He told 
the Samaritan woman that she was both a schismatic 
and a heretic (iv:22). But the boundless breadth of 
His charity, in His Ministry and on the Cross, includ- 
ed all mankind. Finally, He went straight forward, in 
the path of His vocation, to utter failure. Yet who 
doubts that His crucified Life was man's one perfect 
success f For it has done more to regenerate mankind 
than all the greatest statesmen, scientists and philoso- 
phers have been able to accomplish since the world 
began. 



138 SAINT JOHN 



It is profoundly impressive, moreover, that He con- 
stantly trained His disciples in these paradoxes of 
efficiency. We find Him, for example, requiring the 
Twelve, immediately after their return from their ex- 
traordinarily successful preaching mission, to sweep 
together the crumbs left from the repast of the five 
thousand, searching everywhere in the twilight that 
nothing should be lost, and then storing away the 
broken food for their own nourishment. He was pre- 
paring them for a still more successful ministry. We 
must not be surprised then, if, in our vocation, our 
Master leads us to eflfectiveness by ways which are 
quite opposite to our natural inclination and judgment. 

'QLurgsiiag after fecjagegfima 

(Sou ^anifejsten ais Hicljt 

Jesus Christ is the Light of every age, every genera- 
tion, every person. ''Whensoever I am in the world, I 
am the Light of the World," He said, as we may trans- 
late His words literally. Even in the Middle Ages, 
when the night of utter darkness and unbridled sin 
seemed to have settled down over all Europe, the faith 
of the Church was perhaps more wonderful than at 
any time since the day of the Apostles. Those who sat 
in darkness saw the Great Light. 

Immediately after our Lord spoke the words we 
have quoted. He healed the blind man, indicating that 
it is His purpose to illuminate, not merely humankind 
en masse, but every individual soul. We notice, how- 
ever, that His method of working the cure was, first, 
to lay the poultice of clay and spittle upon the sightless 
eyes so as to seal them. Thus He seemed to be rather 



SAINT JOHN 139 



destroying, than restoring, the beggar's vision. How 
often perplexity precedes enlightenment with us ! In- 
deed, it is almost our Lord's normal way to leave the 
soul for a time in intellectual darkness, before He 
grants such a vision of truth as it has never before 
received. 

The blind man was required to go and bathe in the 
Pool of Siloam, in order to be cured, and it must have 
required faith for him to fulfill this condition. Now, 
St. John tells us, in a significant parenthesis, that 
Siloam means ''sent/' He intends to indicate that the 
pool was a type of Jesus, and to remind us that He was 
the One sent from Heaven. The remedy for our blind 
souls is to bathe in His Precious Blood, by penitence, 
and in His truth, by obtaining instruction from the 
writings and pastors of His Church. Then shall we 
come to behold Jesus with such new clearness, that it 
will seem as if we have always before, from our birth, 
been blind to Him. . 

aaieanesJtiap after &«ag:t0tma 

C^riiatianitp IReajSonable 

We must realize fully that our Lord's system of 
teaching the Faith was absolutely reasonable, in the 
sense that He so adapted His instruction as to appeal 
to every kind of human conscience and heart. There 
is a remarkable example of His method, in this re- 
gard, in the way He began leading the blind beggar 
into the full acceptance of Him. For He used the 
clay and spittle because both were believed, by the 
Jews, and the Romans also, to be medicinal. Thus, 
He began on the poor soul's level, with a popular pre- 
scription in which he reposed confidence, in order to 



140 SAINT JOHN 



make this the first rung in the ladder of his conver- 
sion. 

So perfectly convincing was our Saviour, in fact, 
that the problem with the Apostles was how anyone 
could doubt the faith He taught. Thus, St. John feels 
compelled to explain why any of the Jews rejected the 
evidence of His miracles : Their hardness was in ac- 
cordance with the prophecies of Isaiah, he says ; they 
could not believe because God had blinded their eyes 
(xii 138-41). Indeed, in his jealous desire to show 
that after all they could not defeat the Divine Will, 
he leaves out of view for the moment the fact that 
they had first of all wilfully blinded themselves to His 
Truth. It is often a question to us as it was to them, 
that so many reject the reasonable religion of the 
Church, and their unquestioning faith in the midst of 
pagan millions should be a great comfort to us. 

''Bishop," said Carlyle to Wilberforce, ''have you a 
creed?" "Yes," said the bishop, "I have a creed and 
the older I grow, the firmer it becomes. There is only 
one thing that staggers me. It is the slow progress the 
creed seems to make in the world.'' "Ah," answered 
Carlyle, after a pause, slowly and seriously, "but if 
you have a creed you can afford to wait." Surely he 
was right. The eternal years of God belong to the 
Divinely reasonable truth of our religion. 

^6ttt0liaj Sifter feejEagegima 

Opened eyes had greatly changed the face of the 
blind man, as St. Austin long ago remarked. Even 
those to whom his features were perfectly familiar 



SAINT JOHN 141 



were in doubt as to whether he was the same man they 
had known {yv, 8f.). There was fresh hope shining 
in his eyes, and his expression had changed wonder- 
fully with his first outlook upon the beauty of God's 
world. He was a new creature ; old things had passed 
away. How perfectly he symbolizes a soul which has 
just come forth from its first mission, or absolution, or 
communion ! 

It was what our Lord had so lovingly done for him 
which gave him the courage to face the Sanhedrin. 
Poor beggar that he was, he stood firmly loyal to Jesus 
against all the great princes of his nation and church, 
even when faithfulness to his Saviour meant excom- 
munication. He had but just gained the world, and 
now he gave it up forever through becoming a disci- 
ple of Jesus. Excommunication meant, indeed, that 
no one would come within arm's length of him, or give 
him shelter or food. Let us treasure our sacred mem- 
ories, that we may be loyal to our Redeemer against 
all the temptations of the unbelieving world. 

Observe his rapid progress in faith, because he had 
made a sacrifice for his religion. At first he knew our 
Lord only as ''a man called Jesus," but almost at once 
he saw in Him ''a prophet," and then ''a man of God." 
Finally, he reached the glorious climax of faith by 
believing ''into" the Son of Man, at the same time 
that he adored Him as Divine. Thus it is that by often 
dwelling upon God's past mercies to us, we gain 
courage to make sacrifices for our religion, and so 
*'grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord 
Jesus Christ." 



142 SAINT JOHN 



®^^e JFoIIp of (Unbelief 

Tlie Pharisees knew well how they should '*give 
glory to God'' {v, 24). 'The phrase assumes that the 
glory of God is always promoted by manifestation of 
the truth/' Thus it would be to His praise, if they 
confessed that they had been in error and sin, and 
turned from their stubborn unbelief. None knew bet- 
ter than they that this was the ancient meaning of their 
exhortation to the man who had been blind (cp. Josh. 
vii:i9). Yet the only use they made of it was to 
tempt the poor beggar to repudiate his Lord as "a 
sinner." They transmitted the light of God's Word; 
but they were like lenses of ice, which concentrate the 
sun's rays upon tinder so as to kindle it, while they 
remain unmelted. 

The folly of their unbelief appears, moreover, from 
their confession that they knew not from whence Jesus 
had come. This was the most vital of questions to 
them, as to all men, and our Lord had striven to prove 
to them the truth of His claim that He had come from 
Heaven. Yet, with all their learning, they were still 
ignorant of His Divine Origin. But the poor beggar, 
whose congenital blindness, they said, showed that he 
had been born in sin and lay under God's curse, knew 
that the One Who had opened his eyes must be from 
God (z;. 33). 

The cardinal error of these Jewish leaders, however, 
was that they were absolutely satisfied with their 
knowledge of Divine revelation, when in fact they 
had stopped half way to the truth and were stub- 
bornly refusing to go further {w, 40 f.). They said 
"We see," meaning that they had caught from the Old 



SAINT JOHN 143 



Testament a certain vision of the Messiah, in which 
He was to be a great human conqueror, and the mon- 
arch of Israel. They would have none of the ''Mighty 
God," who was to be also the Suffering Servant, in 
those same inspired prophecies (Isa. ix:6; liii). Con- 
sequently, they would not accept their Saviour when 
He came, and 'their sin remained/ Are we content- 
ing ourselves with a partial knowledge of our Bible 
and Prayer Book? Let us humbly confess to Jesus 
our blindness and beseech Him to open our eyes to 
all the glories of His truth. 



&atutaap jactet &ejag;e0ima 

% Stone RejecteH anH Cljojsen 

In casting out him to whom Christ had given sight, 
the Jews heaped upon his personality every mark of 
scorn. 'Thou wast altogether born in sins,' they 
taunted him, 'and dost thou\, the beggar, marked out 
from birth as an evil thing, — dost tho'w teach us?' But 
when Jesus had found him He said unto him, 'Dost 
thou, thou the infinitely precious soul, whom I love 
with unique, individual. Personal devotion, — dost thou 
cast thyself with complete trust upon the Son of Man'? 
{y. 35, A. V. Marg.). Both addressed him by the 
emphatic personal pronoun, bringing out his individ- 
uality in high relief, the Pharisees to stress his titter 
unworthiness, and our Lord to suggest his incalcula- 
ble value to the God of Love. 

As a sign of how greatly He prized the poor beg- 
gar, our Lord sought him out in order to complete in 
him that "work of God" which is faith (vi:29). As 



144 SAINT JOHN 



before He had opened the eyes of his body, so now He 
opened the eyes of his soul. 

All about them were the great stones which were 
meant for the temple. But at Jesus' feet lay a stone 
chosen for the eternal walls of the Catholic Church, 
With the poor beggar, excommunicated by the Jews 
and now prostrate before the Son of Man, the Saviour 
of humankind, ''Who gathers up in Himself, Who 
bears and Who transfigures all that is common to 
man,'* the new Universal Society, in which ''there is 
neither Jew nor Greek," was begun. How priceless to 
Jesus, then, may be any obscure soul if only it has cast 
itself upon Him in entire self-surrender! 



I^or X^t f^xm Dagiai JFoIIotuinc* Read St. John x 

St. John is unique among the Evangelists in that he 
has not recorded any of Christ's parables. He alone, 
however, has preserved for us three priceless alle- 
gories. The parables were not so much to his pur- 
pose, because they are concerned with the more funda- 
mental teachings of Christianity, and he wrote for a 
Church which was familiar with these. The allegories, 
on the other hand, express the great cardinal principle 
of the Fourth Gospel, the Personal relation of the 
Saviour to every individual member of the Divine So- 
ciety. And the very occasion of this most precious 
allegory on the Good Shepherd and His flock illus- 
trates admirably that very conception of Christ's 
boundless care for everyone of His Own which the 
discourse itself was meant to teach. For He was 



SAINT JOHN 145 



stirred to the wonderful eloquence and ineffable ten- 
derness it manifests, by no greater cause than the re- 
ception into His little group of disciples of one ex- 
communicated mendicant. 

The false shepherds were the Pharisees. They had 
for years passed this poor sheep by at the temple gate, 
yet no one of them had deigned to know him ; but here 
was the Good Shepherd, Who knows each sheep by 
name. They had ''slammed the door of blessing" in 
His face; Jesus said to him, "I am the Door." 

He admitted this newly-found sheep into such un- 
speakably close intimacy wuth Himself, that it could 
only be compared to that which exists in perfection 
between the Father and the Son in the Blessed Trinity 
{yv, 14 f., A. V. Marg.). Does it not make Lent in- 
deed a ''dear feast,'' that we are to spend it with this 
King of Love Who is our Shepherd? 



Sl^anliap attet SDuinquagegfima 

In the first part of this allegory iw. 1-9), our Lord 
is the Door of the Sheepfold, the Porter is the Holy 
Ghost, the shepherds are the priests of the Church, 
and the sheep are the laypeople. The true pastor, 
Christ warns us, is he who enters through the low 
Door, that is, who imitates the humility and the will- 
ingness to receive all who come which he sees mani- 
fested in lowly Jesus. The false shepherds, in their 
pride, climbed up some other way, w^hich was impos- 
sible for the poor sheep; they sought to be saved 
through their knowledge of the Law and membership 
in their Pharisaic caste. If ever they went down 



146 SAINT JOHN 



among the flock, the common people whom they de- 
spised (vii:49), it was only to rob, or even destroy 
them {y. i). Unhappily, it is only too easy for the 
true Christian Shepherd to turn false, like these Jews, 
and seek 'to climb up' by way of a cold intellectualism 
or a perfunctory professionalism, whereupon he be- 
comes a *'thief and a robber,'' who filches, or else 
snatches away, the Gospel blessings from his flock. 

Now Jesus looked to the sheep to help him keep 
the true Standard before their pastor's eyes. It is Oxexv 
Door through which he should enter the Fold. They 
exemplify a discipline, lowliness and love, which he 
must have in order to be true. 

In these ways especially He asks them to maintain 
that character of His sheep which will stimulate the 
rector to be their shepherd: (i) Let them 'flee from 
the voice of strangers,' by which the Good Shepherd 
means not only heretics and impostors, but all who 
have not His commission given at ordination {vv. 5, 
8). (2) They must let their pastor guide them ''by 
name," individually, in separate training, not simply as 
a flock folded on the Sabbath. (3) If they are sick or 
wounded, they must come to him for the healing sac- 
raments. (4) They must continually follow him to the 
good pasture, where flourishes the Plant of Renown, 
beside the River of God (Ezek. xxxiv: 29; Ps. Ixv: 9). 
If the sheep make themselves thus the shepherd's own, 
he will not readily become "a hireling" {yv. 12 f.). 

«|)e HiCe of X\}t jpoIH 
There are three fundamental and all-important needs 
of the Christian : he must be admitted to the state of 



SAINT JOHN 147 



salvation, granted spiritual liberty, and provided with 
the means of growth. All of these are assured to the 
flock in Jesus' Fold, holy Church. "I am the Doof^^' 
were His words of boundless comfort ; ''by Me if any 
man enter in, he shall be saved," which secures our 
spiritual safety, ''and shall go in and out" with perfect 
freedom, "and shall find pasture," the Food of eternal 
life {v, 9). The Christian thus "exercises the sum of 
all his powers, claiming his share in the inheritance of 
the world, secure in his home. And while he does so 
he finds pasture. He is able to convert to the divinest 
uses all of the comforts of the earth." 

Our Lord evidently has in view the flock already 
gathered around him {vv, 8, 14, 2J^. And He said 
about that tiny nucleus of the Catholic Church an al- 
most incredible thing: "That which My Father hatk 
given unto Me is greater than all" {v, 29, R. V. 
Marg.). The little flock of the faithful was stronger 
than all the opposing powers in earth and Hell, because 
they were in the Hand of God {v, 28 f.). 

Their Fold was impregnable because Christ was the 
Door. We may understand better what this means to 
the Church, from a saying of a Palestinian shepherd. 
A traveller remarked that his fold seemed to be strong- 
ly built, but its entrance was wide open. "Where is 
the door?" asked the visitor. "/ am the door," an- 
swered the shepherd. He meant that when he had 
safely enclosed his flock, he stretched his own body 
across the opening. So it is that our salvation, free- 
dom, and means of grace are absolutely secured to ts, 
because our Saviour ever sleeplessly guards His Fold 
with His Life. 



148 SAINT JOHN 



In the second half of the allegory {w, 10-29), 
Christ is the Good Shepherd, rather than the door, 
and those opposed to Him are the devil and his agents, 
represented collectively as ''the thief/' The latter 
^^cometh not, but for to steal and to kill and to de- 
stroy/' Not only does he wickedly take away what 
belongs to another's soul, but slays that other, and 
utterly spoils the means of recovering spiritual life. 
The smooth assailant of our religion, for example, 
seeks to steal the Christian's faith, kill his soul, and 
destroy his belief in those Catholic verities and sacra- 
ments, through which his life might be regained. 

But Christ is come that men ''may have life, and 
may have abundance.'' In contrast with the thief's 
stealing is Christ's gift. Where the thief slays, Christ 
bestows life on those He finds dead. Against the thief's 
destruction of the means that renew life, is Christ's 
abundant provision for quickening the twice-dead soul 
through the pleading of the Holy Ghost and the sacra- 
ment of Absolution. 

Perhaps there is nowadays no more subtle enemy of 
the life of Christ's flock, than Buddhism. We do well, 
therefore, to see clearly that behind the veil of attrac- 
tive Oriental mysticism is a religion of despair, death 
and annihilation. Christ came to take death away, but 
Buddha would take life away. To the Buddhist the 
direst foe of man, which shall finally be annihilated in 
Nirvana, is life ; to the Christian, "the last enemy that 
shall be destroyed is death." How blessed, then, is 
this Season of Grace, when for forty days we shall be 



SAINT JOHN 149 



receiving more and more of the ''abundance" which 
the Good Shepherd so eagerly waits to give us ! 

W^t JFitst tESutgdap in Etnt 

®|)e 9lttractifaenej3}3 of tl)e (SooU J§l)ep|)erli 

The Greek word for ''Good'' in our Lord's most 
winning title, indicates that He is not only the True 
Shepherd, in whom is fulfilled the very ideal of the 
shepherd; nor is He simply Good inwardly. In addi- 
tion to both of these attributes, "He has an attractive 
loveliness which claims the admiration of all that is 
generous .in man." Indeed, this revelation of Himself 
as the Good Shepherd so appealed to the people that 
the Jews trembled. "Why hear ye Him" ? they pleaded 
{v, 20). 

There are two ways, particularly, in which Jesus is 
"Good" in this peculiar sense of the word. First, He 
has paid down the price of His own Life for the sheep 
(z/. 15). Or in the phraseology of St. Paul, they are 
"the Church of God, which He purchased with His 
own Blood" (Acts xx:28). Surely, the very great- 
ness of our natural self-love ought to increase the ap- 
peal to our hearts of this Divine Shepherd Who gave 
the infinite ransom of the Life of God for us who were 
His enemies. And in fact, he had us, as Gentiles, 
especially in mind, in our Scythian ancestors, the most 
savage and wicked of those "other sheep," whom, even 
then, by anticipation. He claimed as His own. By one 
Act (of His Passion), as the Greek indicates. He 
would "lead" us into the "one flock" over which He is 
the "one Shepherd" {v, 16, R. V. Marg.). 

Secondly, the dear Lord draws us to Himself by 



ISO SAINT JOHN 



both knowing us, and letting us know Him, in a way 
so direct and loving that it is comparable even to the 
perfect Oneness of His Mind with that of His Father. 
This is the great central revelation of the allegory. It 
should teach us often to put away all created things 
from between ourselves and our Saviour's Godhead, 
so that we contemplate His very Essence as infinite 
Love for us, and then to love Him in response, with 
ail the devotion we can command. 

®|?e S&wion of t^t ^ebentp 

It was directly after our Lord had spoken of His 
*'other sheep,'' it seems, that He sent forth the Seventy 
Disciples to begin finding them, (St. Luke x:i-2i). 
They were not, like the Twelve, forbidden to seek out 
Samaritans and Gentiles (cp. St. Matt. x:5flf.). In- 
deed the very symbolism of the Feast of Tabernacles, 
after which they started on their mission, taken in 
connection with their number, suggests that they were 
the first missionaries to the world outside Israel. For, 
during the octave, seventy bullocks were sacrificed for 
the ''nations of the world," the traditional number of 
which was seventy. And our Lord Himself, probably 
at this time, departed with the Twelve into Persea, 
where for the next three months He ministered to the 
Gentiles (St. Luke xi-xviii : 30). We can see, there- 
fore, how eagerly Jesus longed to seek out His ''other 
sheep," even during the time of His Mission to the 
"lost sheep of the House of Israel" (St. Matt, xv: 24). 

Moreover, His seventy missionaries must go forth 
endued with His own love for the sheep. As He was 



SAINT JOHN 151 



a Pillar of Fire and Cloud to lead the whole world to 
the Promised Land, so must they be, as His represen- 
tatives (viii: 12). If He had said, '7 am the Light of 
the World," He had as certainly said, of His disciples, 
''Ye are the light of the world'' (St. Matt, v: 14). 
He was the Smitten Rock out of Which springs the 
living water ; from their hearts as well must the blessed 
stream flow out in rivers (vii : 37 f.). And, as He was 
the Lamb Who would give His Life to save the flock, 
so He sent them forth as ''lambs among wolves," to 
die, if need be, for the lost sheep. 

Thus the Seventy were ''other Christs." Yet we 
have not the name of one of them recorded in the 
Bible. Blessed obscurity! They were all written in 
Heaven (St. Luke x:2o). The names of the Twelve 
are several times given in the New Testament, but 
one of them will never be inscribed in the Book of 
Life. Let us then love our obscure mission to Jesus' 
"other sheep" as the very highroad to Heaven, and 
consecrate ourselves more perfectly for it. 

^Se iFir0t S^atntliap in Sent 

Wc^t ^ooH $|)ep|)erU '%>zt^\m the ^oatss 

It was at a time of hope, that our Lord returned to 
Jerusalem. The Festival of the Dedication commem- 
orated the re-consecration of the temple, by Judas 
Maccabseus, after its profanation by Antiochus. The 
hymn for the octave gives thanks to God for this and 
many other great deliverances, and craves yet one 
more. It was to answer this prayer that our Lord 
again oflFered Himself to His people. He appeared 
walking up and down in Solomon's porch, on, or near. 



152 SAINT JOHN 



His Birthday. The Jews surrounded Him, hoping by 
their eager question to make Him avow Himself the 
Messiah of their national and religious aspirations. 
There are, many like them, in all ages, who would 
willingly accept a Saviour after their own hearts, but 
cannot believe in the crucified God-Man. Patiently and 
lovingly, our Lord began again with them at the foot 
of His ladder of faith, pointing to the mercy and 
power displayed by His miracles {v. 25). But He 
must lead them on to the goal of faith speedily now, 
for His time was very short; therefore He quickly 
revealed the supreme truth of His Oneness in Essence 
with His Father {v. 30). Their only response was to 
lift up great stones, probably some of those intended 
for the completion of the temple, in order to crush 
Him {v. 31, as literally translated). 

Their justification for thus rejecting the truth of 
His Deity was that Jesus was a man and therefore He 
could not be God (^^. 33). They assumed that there 
was an absolute repugnance between the Divine and 
the human which would prevent their union in one 
Person. Accordingly, Christ appealed to their Scrip- 
tures, and adduced the fact that the theocratic magis- 
trates of Israel were called ''gods'' because of their 
moral union with Jehovah. We can see how true this 
answer was from the fact that the ''Word of God'' 
came even to wicked Caiaphas, simply by virtue of his 
high-priesthood (xi: 49-52). If, then, our Lord rea- 
soned with the Jews, their judges, being evil men often, 
were thus closely affiliated with God, surely there 
could be no such antipathy between Deity and man- 
hood as would make His claim to be the Son of God 
impossible. 



SAINT JOHN 153 



How gently then He began all over again, appealing 
to the primary proof of His claims afforded by His 
works of love! {y. 37). Even they were softened, so 
that when He again declared the truth of His God- 
head {v. 38), they laid down their stones and contented 
themselves with attempting to arrest Him. We can 
see, therefore, that He by no means confined His love 
to the sheep. As some of the pictures in the catacombs 
show Him, He was laboring to carry home the goats 
also, on His Shoulders. . 

^6e jFir0t ^untiap in £tnt 

Q!r|?rij3t's3 Keturn to X^z MJiltiernejsgf 

St. John gives us a very touching suggestion about 
our Lord's sorrows, when He tells us that, after His 
escape from the Jews, He 'Svent away again beyond 
Jordan into the place where John at first baptized, 
and there He abode" for three months. For it would 
seem that He was accustomed to go into retreat there, 
when the dear Human Heart needed to be Divinely 
comforted and refreshed. We are not told of any 
previous visits to that sacred spot, but our saintly 
Guide indicates that they occurred from time to time. 

It was there that He had received His Baptism. 
The Holy Spirit had come down as a Dove bringing 
superabundant grace and power for His Ministry, and 
had abode in His Soul. The Father had proclaimed 
from Heaven His infinite love for His Son in Whom 
even His Omniscience found naught but perfection 
(St. Matt. iii:i6f.). Not far away was the Mount 
of Temptation where He had triumphantly overcome 
Satan during the First Lent. There He would spend 
the forty days immediately before His Passion, pre- 



154 SAINT JOHN 



paring His Human Soul to pass through that awful 
furnace of affliction with Filial trust, meekness and 
love (xi:54). 

Thus, our Lord did not scorn to seek an environ- 
ment full of sacred associations, in order that, by mem- 
ories of the tender Providence and help of the Father 
and the Holy Ghost, His human Nature might be 
strengthened for its Immolation upon the Cross. How 
much more do we need to return to God's past deliv- 
erances and mercies, when we are facing anxiety and 
trouble! Let us store our memory with the answers 
to our prayers we have observed, the Divine comfort 
granted us in previous suffering, and every other reve- 
lation to us of God's infinite tenderness. 

Stponnap after tSe ifftst ^unaap fn Eent 

One might have thought that even Christ would have 
been too discouraged by the failure of His latest effort 
to convert the Jews to enter immediately upon another 
campaign to gain souls. There was something very 
depressing in the stupidity, as well as in the hardness, 
of their unbelief. They had tried to murder Him with 
small stones, and He hid Himself and escaped them. 
On the next occasion, therefore, when they would slay 
Him, they laboriously lifted up blocks of granite to 
cast at Him, evidently thinking that they would be 
successful this time because of the very bigness of 
the stones! 

Moreover, when He stood there by the Jordan, at 
the scene of His baptism, a proscribed exile from His 
own capital, it must have seemed to natural reason that 



SAINT JOHN 155 



His Ministry had moved in a circle and come to an 
end where it began. But our Great Exemplar re- 
garded not the opinion of man; He considered only 
the approval of His Father. 

His determination to save souls to the utmost limit 
of His opportunities was invincible. He took up His 
abode at Bethabara, not only that He might be strength- 
ened to go forward in His vocation, but also because 
this was the most advantageous position for gathering 
the results of the Mission of the Seventy and of His 
own recent preaching in Persea. It is a joy to read 
that He was successful in this campaign of His most 
generous charity; for ''many resorted unto Him," and 
'many believed into Him there.' Shall we, then, ever 
permit discouragement? Our Saviour proves to us 
that when we seem to be complete failures in our labor 
for souls, we are in fact about to achieve some great 
success, if only we continue faithfully accepting the 
opportunities God sends us. 

iFor tjje IFibe Dapja jpollotoinc* Read St. John xi : 1-52 

^tte0lia? after i^z JFitgft feuntiag in Hmt 

Wc)Z ©urpoge in ^ufferinix 

The Apostle of Love would have us appreciate the 
blessedness of affliction. He has, therefore, selected 
for us the death of St. Lazarus and the grief of his 
holy sisters, because these three were the object of 
Jesus' special love. When the messenger came to an- 
nounce the illness of the young man, our Lord knew 
that he was already dead. His revelation of the three- 
fold purpose of suffering is on this account the more 
solemn and impressive: This sickness,' He declared, 



156 SAINT JOHN 



*is not unto death, but in behalf of the glory of God, 
that the Son of God may be glorified thereby/ It was 
not unto death, as its final end, but unto life eternal; 
it was a sacrifice of his will which Lazarus was given 
the opportunity of making for the sake of his love for 
his Heavenly Father; and, finally, it was to become 
the occasion of a new revelation of Christ's power and 
love, leading on to His glorious Passion. It requires 
little consideration to see that all our sufifering is 
meant to have this same triple result, of good to our 
own soul, the increase of our Father's glory, and a 
meed of greater praise to our Redeemer for the pa- 
tience and love which men see that He has wrought in 
us through the Sacrament of Pain. 

This is one of the three places in the Fourth Gospel, 
according to the correct text, where our Lord refers 
to Himself as the Son of God (cp. v: 25 ; x: 36). On 
the peculiarly solemn occasions when He preferred 
this title of His Divinity to ''Son of Man,'' He in- 
tended to bring prominently before us the Deity of His 
Person. Accordingly, here He would suggest to us 
the unspeakably comforting truth that He, Incarnate 
God, has gone before us to glory by the way of the 
Cross. 

Yet, while He has converted physical evil into a 
blessing for us, it was none of His making. He 
groaned in Divine indignation at the havoc which 
death and grief, the fruit of human sin, had wrought 
in His fair world {v, 33, R. V. Marg.). And He 
^'troubled Himself over the affliction of His friends ; 
that is, He deliberately assumed their pain, and made 
it His own. Our troubles, too, He takes uDon His 
dear Heart in Heaven. In all our afflictions He is af-- 
flicted (Isa. Ixiii: 9). 



SAINT JOHN 157 



ClflJcanegi&ap after t5t jFit0t feunHap in Eent 

CKnanBtoereH ©taper for Belief 

Jesus loves tis with that same devotion which He 
had for St. Lazarus and his holy sisters. The messen- 
ger attributed to Him a kind of love which is based 
upon special friendship; but St. John substitutes for 
his word that which means the universal Charity con- 
stituting the very Essence of God (cp. vv, 3, 5, in the 
original). Now, He let the grieving sisters wait until 
the fourth day after their brother's death, in order to 
intervene at the very best time for them ; for the de- 
parted spirit was thought to linger near the body for 
three days, and therefore the miracle by which He 
would recall it would be less helpful to their faith dur- 
ing that time. We can understand, then, that He has 
some loving purpose, when He delays His answer to 
our prayer. 

But often it happens that our dear one, whose life 
we begged for so pitifully, dies. Let us claim for our- 
selves at such times the great consolation that the de- 
parted one is still the dear friend of our Saviour and 
His Saints {v, 11). Jesus will ''go unto him," for he 
is just as truly now as he was on earth "in a real per- 
sonal relationship'' to his Redeemer {vv, 11, 15). How 
that dear Heart longs to call His sheep by name, as He 
called "Lazarus" {v. 43), and summon him from the 
"Waiting Church" into the ineffable light of His Pres- 
ence ! 

We, who are left on earth, must cooperate with Him 
by our prayers and Eucharists for the faithful de- 
parted. The Jews could not believe that His love was 
consistent with His allowing the death of St. Lazarus, 
and their doubt made Him groan again {w, 36 ff.) ; 



158 SAINT JOHN 



He did not need to trouble Hifuself^ this time. But, 
in fact, it is said that the young man, after he was 
brought back to earth, never smiled again, so great 
had been his happiness in knowing that he was saved 
at last from the tyranny of sin. Let us then lose no 
time in repining, but seek to consummate the happi- 
ness of our beloved dead, in Jesus' Presence. 



tCj&tttsitiap aiftet tfie ifirs^t &unliaj in JLtnt 

(Kffrciieins JFaitt) CHnHcr affliction 

St. Martha is a wonderful exponent of faith in the 
midst of trouble. While her brother lay ill, and evi- 
dently drawing toward his end, she and St. Mary 
kept saying to each other, until it became a habit, ''If 
Jesus were here our brother would not die'' (cp. v. 21 
and V. 32). St. Martha set herself to watch for His 
coming, and remained at her post until her brother's 
death; and then, having watched while hope lasted, 
she continued after it seemed to have flown forever, 
and was rewarded by being the first to welcome Jesus. 
Thus, her greeting (v. 21) is not a complaint, as the 
Greek shows, but assumes that His continued absence 
must have been of necessity, and that He can even yet 
obtain from His Father the fulfilment of His promise 
that her brother's sickness should not be unto death 
(w. 21 f.). 

She teaches us, however, that Qiristian doctrine, 
although comforting in itself, will not help us in our 
affliction, unless we have made it our own. Jesus 
sought to console her by the thought of the Resurrec- 
tion. But while she believed in the doctrine, the fact 
of the universal awakening, at the "last day,'* when all 



SAINT JOHN 159 



human interests would be past, did not have for her 
such personal and individual cheer as to soothe the 
pain of her brother's loss. Then He made the Resur- 
rection of personal value to her by identifying it with 
Himself, from Whom His Own receive that life prin- 
ciple which cannot be holden of death. And He as- 
sured her that a soul, like that of St. Lazarus, which 
had believed into Him, should never die {vv, 21-26). 

But it is her old, assimilated, well-tested beliefs 
which are her great strength in her sorrow. ''She saith 
unto Him, Yea, Lord ; I have believed that Thou art 
the Christ,'' foretold in the Prophets, *'the Son of God" 
Who can restore the lost fellowship of man with His 
Creator, ''even He that cometh into the world/' that is, 
the One Who is the Bridge between earth and Heaven 
{y, 2j, R. v.). Let us then learn the truth of our 
religion by personal experience, before we subject it to 
the stress of dire need in affliction. 

JFritiap at trr tfie ifftgft feuntrap in Eent 

affliction 3ntentieli to 3ncre*0e JFaitf) 

Our Lord had for His ultimate purpose, in the rais- 
ing of St. Lazarus, the development of saving faith. 
For even the Apostles, who believed ''into Him," must 
advance or deteriorate. Faith ''becomes and is not. 
He who is a Christian is no Christian." Therefore 
Christ wrought His miracle to the intent that they 
might believe {v. 15). The saintly sisters also grew 
apace in their faith in Him. Before St. Martha left 
Him, to call St. Mary, "she had risen above private 
grief," because she had responded to His new revela- 
tion {w. 25-28). But, besides His purpose to reveal 



160 SAINT JOHN 



Himself more fully to these dear friends of His, He 
had determined to make yet another effort to convert 
the hostile Jews, many of whom were present. For 
this reason, He offered His thanksgiving for the 
miracle before it was wrought, 'that the Jews might 
believe that the Father had sent Him' (vv, 41 f.)- 
Surely, then, our Lord wishes us always to meet suffer- 
ing with a fresh and more perfect act of faith. 

Again, those who come to help us, or comfort us, in 
our trouble, must find our Saviour also with us. It 
was the Jews who were sympathizing with St. Mary 
and followed her to her meeting with Jesus, who saw 
His great *'sign" and 'believed into Him.' This was 
the rich reward of even their natural compassion. We 
must not send our friends away without the like 
precious boon of increased faith. 

For if we examine the passages in which our Lord 
said, ''thy faith hath saved thee," we find "that the 
word 'save' reaches through the whole of man's nature 
to every part of it." Faith, under affliction, therefore, 
will often gain for us even physical relief (St. Matt, 
ix : 22 ; St. Mark x : 52) ; it will surely make our suffer- 
ing a penance for our sins and so bring moral healing 
(St. Luke vii:5o); and it will infallibly crown our 
recovery with a great spiritual gain (St. Luke xvii: 

&attttlia? after tje jFirstt &unliap in fient 

Because He was God and His Human Mind was 
from Childhood illuminated with knowledge, reflected 
from His Divine Omniscience, Jesus, all His Life, 
foresaw His Cross. Thus, when the Apostles would 



SAINT JOHN 161 



have persuaded Him not to visit Bethany for the rais- 
ing of St. Lazarus, for fear the Jews would stone Him, 
He answered in a way that proves His perfect famil- 
iarity with every horrid detail of His Passion {vv, 7- 
10). Before Him, He said, lay the full twelve hours 
of His day, that is, the interval before His appointed 
time to die. As the ''sun knoweth his going down/' 
and no man can hasten his setting, so the Son of 
Righteousness must run His course. Then would come 
the night of His Passion, when the black darkness 
would gather about His Head and He would ''stum- 
ble'' over the gibbet of a convict-slave. In that hour, 
even the "light" within Him, the ineffable consolation 
of His vision of the Father, would be quenched, and 
midnight would reign in that desolate Heart. All this, 
let us remember, He had known, with every circum- 
stance of His last Agony in Body, Mind and Spirit, 
from His earliest Boyhood. 

This suffering of Christ through anticipation was 
absolutely unparalleled. Men dread a future disaster, 
in proportion to the vividness with which their imag- 
ination brings it before them, and to the degree in 
which they fear that they will be subject to it. Now 
our Lord had a perfect imagination, like, but tran- 
scending, that of the greatest artists, which pictured to 
Him all the horrors of His Passion, with relentless 
realism; besides. He knew that He would become ut- 
terly helpless in the hands of His deadly foes. Thus, 
tortured by both the mental terrors which make phys- 
ical cowards, and that to a degree which is impossible 
for our dimmed faculties, He passed through a very 
Hell of suffering for thirty years before He was cru- 
cified. 



162 SAINT JOHN 



*'Now is my Soul troubled/' He once said, referring 
to that part of His Spirit in which was ''gathered up 
the fulness of present human life'' (xii 127). Yet the 
keen agony manifested at that moment did not begin 
then; for literally His words mean, ''My Soul has 
been and still is troubled." That pain had been famil- 
iar to Him from the beginning. How can we, then, in 
our affliction, doubt God's love for us, when we con- 
sider the Passion of Jesus' whole life, and remember 
that He was the Only-Begotten, Whom the Father 
loved infinitely? > 

^|)e ^econH Wieek in fitnU Read St. John xxiii : 53 

%lit &econli &unliap m Sent 

€^f)e ]lnfecttou!3 eTourage of JfeisuiS 

At the outset of his record of the first Holy Week, 
St. John sets before us the absolute fearlessness of 
Christ and the way it was communicated to those 
around Him. "Jesus therefore," he relates, "six days 
before the Passover, came to Bethany," on His way to 
Jerusalem. His significant "therefore" refers to our 
Lord's knowledge of the high priests' deadly malice 
against Him (xi 147-57). He was proscribed, with a 
price set upon His Head, and a strict commandment 
of the Pharisees laid upon all the Jews to spy out His 
place of retirement and inform against Him. Which- 
ever way He turned, He set the serpents hissing. Yet 
with full consciousness of all these preparations to ap- 
prehend and slay Him, He was calmly walking into the 
very arms of His foes. 

The people of Bethany 'therefore made Him a sup- 
per there,' St. John continues. This second "there- 
fore" means that the villagers acted so bravely, in 



SAINT JOHN 163 



view of Jesus' inspiring courage. Although they must 
have known that He was an outlaw, condemned by 
their spiritual rulers, they were emboldened by His 
fearlessness to show Him their gratitude for the in- 
effable blessings He had brought them. The family 
which He had especially loved was of course invited, 
but the very mention of the facts that St. Lazarus was 
a guest and that St. Martha served, indicates that the. 
feast was given by the townspeople. 

''Mary, therefore, took a pound of ointment of 
spikenard, very precious, and anointed the feet of 
Jesus.'' She also had caught the blessed infection from 
His brave Heart. She apprehended that she was 
anointing Him for some Divine act of Self-sacrifice 
which she intuitively perceived was imminent. With a 
real share of His own heroism, she had nerved herself 
to give Him up. May He make us, His ^'little ones," 
brave to share His Self-immolation! 

S^ontiap after X\z feeconti feuntiap fn Eent 

d)f ©enitent 

St. Mary Magdalen was dead when this Gospel was 
written. St. John feels, therefore, that he may iden- 
tify her by name as ''the woman" who anointed our 
Saviour for His Burial and received from Him such 
extraordinary praise (cp. St. Matt. xxvi:6-i3; St. 
Mark xiv:3-9). ^^^ 2X^0, for our comfort, he dis- 
closes the fact that she was "the sinner" who had, on 
a previous occasion, bathed our Lord's Feet with her 
spikenard and her tears (xi:2; St. Luke vii: 36-50). 
Let us then observe how consuming was the love of 
this great penitent. God had poured out His costliest 



164 SAINT JOHN 



gifts on her head; she would at least pour out her 
most precious ointment upon His Head (St. Matt. 
xxvi:7). Not content with this, which was a cour- 
tesy sometimes offered to an honored guest, she then 
knelt down before Him, and anointed His Feet in 
token of extraordinary reverence. At the same time, 
she unloosened her hair and with it wiped His Feet, 
which, especially among Orientals, was ''an act of the 
most complete self-devotion.'' Finally, she broke the 
alabaster cruse, so that it never afterwards should be 
put to any less sacred use (St. Mark xiv: 3). 

She was unconscious that in this way she was pro- 
viding for the last honors of the Most Holy Dead. 
Judas in his avarice was equally unconscious that he 
was being led on to accomplish Jesus' Death. Let us 
learn from their opposite examples, that we must de- 
velop a positive habit of self-denial and of prodigal 
love for Christ, so that we will consecrate that sub- 
stratum of our characteristic thoughts and volitions 
which is one main basis of our more conscious, delib- 
erate activity and greatly influences it. 

Our Saviour put the highest interpretation upon the 
act of the dear penitent. He said that it was worthy 
to be recorded in the Gospel together with His Passion. 
Because her uncalculating love was like His, the break- 
ing of the alabaster box should be proclaimed to all 
the Christian world side by side with the rending of 
His Body; and the pouring out of the precious oint- 
ment should be associated forever with the effusion of 
His Precious Blood. What other friend would appre- 
ciate the greatest gift as Jesus does the least thing we 
do for love of Him? 



SAINT JOHN 165 



^uegdap Mitt tie Second &unDap in Sent 

3fej3U)3 anti t|)f ©oor 

Our Lord appears to have expected that there would 
always be poor people, as long as the world lasts, and 
he enjoins upon us to regard them as our brethren, 
saying that we are to 'have them with us.' St. Chry- 
sostom, indeed, understands Him to have meant that 
His dear Feet represent to us the poor, and that He 
would have us pour out upon them the myrrh of Qiris- 
tian kindness. Perhaps we may learn the truth and 
beauty of this thought from a very tiny, humble teach- 
er. It was a wren who built her nest in the metal 
foot-rest of the crucifix which stands in the center of 
the monastic garden at Holy Cross. There she reared 
her brood in all safety, being assured of special pro- 
tection and kindness, at the Feet of Jesus. 

Our obligation of generosity to Christ's ''least breth- 
ren" is reinforced by that which we owe to our own 
souls. For almsgiving is one of the "three notable 
duties" of a Christian. We can see from the example 
of Judas how necessary it is for us to perform it faith- 
fully. Our Lord intended that his natural disposition 
to selfishness should be corrected by the almsgiving of 
the little Band, which was entrusted to him (cp. xiii: 
29). 

But our Saviour seeks to impress upon us that the 
Blessed Eucharist, in which He comes to us, has a 
greater claim upon us than the poor. ''Me ye have not 
always," He said. In the early morning of each day, 
He sits upon His humble altar throne in robes of hu- 
man food. We must pour out our devotion upon Him 
there, nor scruple to spend upon that Holy Service 
even "three hundred pence," the wages of a man for a 



166 SAINT JOHN 



year. Then we can go forth with sympathy and love 
drawn from Him, to minister to His poor. 



3fe!3Uj3 t|)e King of Jjarael 

To the Last of the Apostles, our Lord's approach to 
His Capital on the first Palm Sunday was an episode 
related rather to the Christians of his day than to the 
Jews who had crucified his Master. The very poverty 
of this King whose war horse was the borrowed ass's 
colt — He had humbly promised to return it ''straight- 
way" (St. Mark xi:3, R. V.) — and Whose retinue 
was the despised multitude, made Him especially suit- 
able to be the Sovereign Lord of the lowly Apostolic 
Church (cp. i Cor. i: 26). The ass, moreover, was an 
"unclean" animal, according to the Jewish ceremonial 
law, and this unbroken colt would therefore well rep- 
resent the Gentiles, who were to yield their undis- 
ciplined hearts so willingly to the mastery of Jesus. 

It was remarkable, also, that the people in greeting 
Christ cried out, ''Blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord." For this verse from Psalm 
cxviii had for centuries been chanted by the priests 
in welcoming the worshippers to the temple. But now 
the laypeople became priests according to the ancient 
prophecy, "Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests," 
which was fulfilled in the Catholic Church (Ex. xix : 6; 
Rev. v: 10; i St. Pet. ii: S). 

But we feel certain that St. John, writing a quarter 
of a century after the destruction of Jerusalem, is 
thinking of the spiritual Zion, when we observe that 
he prefaces the prophecy of Zechariah with two words 



SAINT JOHN 167 



of encouragement to his own ^'little children/' ''Fear 
not," he cries to them, as they stand facing the vast 
relentless cruelty of the Empire, ''fear not, Daughter 
of Zion ! Behold, thy King cometh !" Down the ages 
of Christian history that lowly Monarch rides, for He 
is the universal Saviour of every generation and every 
land. May God speed the day v^hen our King shall 
come to His own in America ! 



^5at0tiap mttt tSe feeconH &untiap in 2ent 

It was one of the strangest of the paradoxes upon 
which our Lord insisted, as all four Evangelists bear 
witness, that true self-love inevitably issues in self- 
immolation; that the way to keep our life forever is 
to sacrifice it, and that we attain to fruitfulness 
through ''losing our life,'' and to glory through mor- 
tification. He pointed to three obvious proofs of the 
proposition expressed by these extraordinary state- 
ments (vv. 23-25): (i) It is a fundamental law of 
nature that life springs out of death. Thus, a grain 
of wheat "abideth" alone, unless, being sown in the 
darkness of the earth, it perishes, and in perishing 
nourishes the new plant which it sends forth from its 
heart to bear an hundredfold. (2) The little group of 
disciples around Christ who had "hated their lives'' 
for His sake, were evidently "keeping'' them in the 
fullest sense. There must have been a look of calm, 
deep happiness in their faces, as well as of a quiet 
dignity, betokening those in the favor of a great King, 
We notice that the Greek strangers addressed St. 
Philip, the poor Galilean fisherman, by the title, "Sir/' 



168 SAINTJOHN 



or, literally, ''Lord." (3) Christ's own crucified life 
had been gloriously successful, even in the eyes of the 
Jews ; for, besides His unparalleled supernatural 
powers, which had culminated in the raising of St, 
Lazarus from death, 'the world had gone after Him' 
when He had at last consented to be acclaimed King 
of Israel {v, 19). Thus, He proved by patent evi« 
dence, satisfactory even to natural reason, that the 
way to make the most of ourselves is through dying 
to ourselves for His sake. 

The same truth appears, moreover, in this way: we 
cannot find real happiness except in the service of 
Jesus. But if we serve Him, we must follow Him 
{v. 26), and He enjoins upon all His disciples a love 
like His, consuming self (xiii: 34). 

Nor is this supernatural self-love impossible for us. 
For we have three Divine Helpers all striving to lift 
us up above false self-love even to the height of Jesus 
Crucified. For the Father is "drawing'' us to Christ 
(vi: 44). The Son said, 'T, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto Myself" {v, 32). By 
the Holy Spirit we are "borne unto Perfection" (Heb. 
vi:i, literally translated). We need only permit the 
Blessed Trinity to have Their way with us, therefore, 
and we shall be exalted, poor, faulty servants though 
we be, to the fellowship of love, with Jesus. 



€|)ni3t ^ufferins for t]^e (Sentilee 

It seems surprising, at first, that the approach of the 
Greeks and their eagerness to see our Lord should 
have caused Him such keen suffering {yv. 20-28). 



SAINT JOHN 169 



The reason was, however, that their inquiry brought 
vividly before Him the need and the receptivity of the 
Gentiles, to whom the Gospel and the Kingdom of 
God would soon pass. But first He must die, and 
rise again, for them. Thus the very appeal of these 
Greek proselytes erected His Cross before His very 
Eyes. 

Our heroic Master seldom gave any sign of the 
suffering He constantly bore on our behalf. His 
words on this occasion are therefore a precious revela- 
tion of His dear human Heart. "Except a grain of 
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, 
but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit,'' He said, 
signifying His own Crucifixion under this humble 
figure. What to the Farmer is the sowing is to the 
Grain a 'falling into the earth.' And the poor Seed 
must leave Its natural sphere and lie in the darkness 
under the soil. Thus all the suffering, dereliction and 
manifold mortification of His Death and Sepulture 
were none the less real to His human Mind, because 
He, no less than His Father, was determined to pay 
the supreme price for us Gentiles. 

It was in order to show us how bitter was the strug- 
gle it cost Him to continue steadfastly in the way of 
His vocation, and how great was His Love in the 
Passion He endured on our behalf, that He expressed 
His thoughts aloud. The alternative of saying, 
''Father save Me from this hour," which would have 
once and for all done away with the Cross, or of 
asking, and obtaining, that His ''Father would glorify 
His name" of Love by the Atonement, had been pre- 
sented to Him hour by hour all His life. Nor did He 
ever for one moment hesitate as to His answer. His 
Life was one long Passion of Love for us, consum- 



170 SAINT JOHN 



mated on the Cross. Thus He teaches us that, in the 
grammar of Divine Charity, the perfect of ''live'' is 
love. 

SatutHa? mitt tfie feeconli feuntiap in Emt 

'Beliebinc Into ti)e JLigi^t 

It is characteristic of St. John that he remembered 
our Lord's last words to the Jewish world, as being 
*'an exhortation and a promise,'' rather than warnings 
of coming judgment, such as are quoted by the other 
three Evangelists as the conclusion of their record of 
His public Ministry (cp. St. Matt. xxv:46; St. Mk. 
xiii : 2>7 \ St. Luke xxi : 36). The question drawn from 
the people by His gracious saying that He would be 
''lifted up from the earth," in order to draw them to 
Him, had shown that they were entirely unprepared 
to accept the crucified Son of Man as the Christ 
{v, 34). Consequently, He foresaw that unless they 
could be got to 'believe into the Light, while they 
had the Light,' they would be overtaken by the black 
night of His Passion, and would never "become sons 
of Light" {v. 36, A. V. Marg.). In His anxiety to 
elicit from them a definite, conclusive act of faith in 
Him, while He was still in their view invested with 
the splendor of His Kingship (v, 13), He entirely 
forgot His own position on the very brink of His 
Passion. 

Moreover, our Lord had revealed, in a previous dis- 
course appended by St. John here (vv, 42-50), that 
it was from His Father He had received His great 
yearning to illuminate men with Divine Wisdom. "I 
have not spoken of Myself," He declared, "but the 
Father which sent Me. He gave Me a commandment 



SAINT JOHN 171 



what I should say/' that is, the substance of the Gos- 
pel, *'and what I should speak," which means every 
word of His teaching in detail (z;. 49). But, if God 
was taking such infinite pains to enlighten the Jews, 
how can it be said that He was at the same time blind- 
ing them {w. 39 ff.) ? St. Chrysostom long ago an- 
swered that the Gospel blinded the Jews, because their 
spiritual eyes were weak from their own pride and 
self-will. So far from causing any soul to shut out 
its salvation, our Lord even refused to condemn the 
man, if there were any such, who heard His teaching, 
and still remained in sincere unbelief. It was the one 
who rejected Him, and received not His words. He 
said, who would be judged by the Gospel he had 
wilfully despised (yv, 47 f.). 

The fact that what we have made ourselves deter- 
mines whether or not we will hear Christ's word is 
admirably illustrated by the different interpretations 
put by two groups of the people upon the Divine Voice 
which came to our Lord from Heaven {vv, 28 f.) To 
some it was but the muttering of a thunder storm, 
while to the others it was ''the broken syllables of 
God," brought by an angel, — a message articulate, 
personal and from some holy speaker. The Voice had 
come for the sake of the people, but only those whose 
characters were attuned to God's could hear it. Let 
us then resolve that our spiritual senses shall be quick- 
ened by our repentence and love, this Lent, that 
through all our future life they may be keen to appre- 
hend the glorious truth of the Divine Illuminator. 



172 SAINT JOHN 



®|^irU SKIHeefe in ILcnt* Read St. John xiii 

^fie ^JfrD &untiap m Ernt 

3[ej3U!3 t|)e ^labe of i^iis CrcaturejB 

On the last night of His Ministry, our Lord filled 
every moment up to His very arrest in Gethsemane 
with final instructions to His Apostles. The all-im- 
portant lesson of His unremitting service to His crea- 
tures, however, He taught by the symbolic act of wash- 
ing their feet. Having laid aside His outer garment, 
and girded Himself with a towel like a domestic slave, 
He knelt before each of them and performed the most 
menial of duties. Now, St. John explains that there 
were three reasons for His thus demanding the right 
of serving man as His slave: (a) He loved His own, 
whom He would leave in the world, to the uttermost; 
(b) He fully realized His Deity, knowing *'that He 
was come from God and went to God"; (c) He was 
the absolute Sovereign of the universe, for ''the Father 
had given all things into His Hands" {w. 1-5). And, 
because His action was typical of what He is doing 
for us every instant, through the ages, every detail of 
His perfect service is carefully recorded for us iyv. 

4f.). 

The supreme pledge, however, that the God-Man is 
bound to work as our slave is the Incarnation. ''What 
wonder," cries St. Austin, "if He girded Himself with 
a towel, when He had accepted the form of a slave 
and was found in the habit of man." 

How diflferent from Jesus' lowliness and love is the 
pride of our fallen human nature ! Even the Apostles, 
though they were saints, had scorned to do the office 
of a slave. Should Peter be servant to John, and so 



SAINT JOHN 173 



yield the precedence to him! Should John bathe the 
feet of that Iscariot, whom he had heard muttering 
over St. Mary's act of devotion to His Master! Yet 
God Incarnate knelt humbly before all of them, as in- 
deed He kneels before you and me whenever He 
washes us clean from the soil of our pilgrimage. Dear 
Slave I Bind us as Thy fellows, by an irrevocable in- 
denture, for all eternity {v, i6). 

There are three Greek words, in the New Testa- 
ment, which signify the example of Christ. The first, 
which is peculiar to St. Paul, the apostolic exponent of 
Faith, means primarily, ''image.'' The great Apostle 
represents the whole process of our salvation, as our 
being 'conformed to the image of the Son of God,' 
that is, to His Character manifested to us in His exam- 
ple (Rom. viii: 29). Faith would have us keep before 
our eyes the revelation of perfect holiness in Jesus 
Christ, and strive to be changed into that Divinely 
lovely image "from glory to glory" (2 Cor. iii:i8, 
A. V. Marg.). 

But Hope, in the person of St. Peter, sets our Lord's 
example before us as an "alphabetic writing copy," 
which we are to keep on imitating until it becomes sec- 
ond nature to us. 'For hereunto were ye called,' he 
tells us, 'because Christ also suffered for you, leaving 
you a Copy, that ye should diligently follow His steps' 
( I St. Pet. ii : 21 ) . He fully recognizes that we are 
only beginners, awkward children with a perfect 
Model before us. He himself bungled sadly in trying 



174 SAINT JOHN 



to follow It, when he strove to prevent his Saviour 
from cleansing away his stains, and again when he 
insisted that he was strong enough to go with Him 
to prison and death (St. John xiii:6fif., 37 f.)- ^^^ 
he sets before us the sure hope that, if we only con- 
tinue practising faithfully, we shall find at last that 
our character is formed like that of Jesus. 

The Apostle of Love presents to us the example of 
Christ as the Divine Character in action (vv. 12-17). 
We behold the Hands into which the Father had given 
all things used to bathe the soiled feet of sinners. 
Those who would follow Christ, he teaches, must be 
practical lovers of their race. The most royal, the 
most Divine, thing is to be servant of all. 

^tte0liap after tSe tCfifrti feunliap in %tnt 

There is an old tradition, that the first of the Apos- 
tles whose feet our Lord washed was Judas. Yet, 
even as He performed the servile task for him. He 
knew that the foot He was bathing and drying was 
about to spurn Him over the precipice into the abyss 
of His Passion. For, a little later, He quoted, with 
reference to the traitor, the prophetic words : ''He 
that eateth bread with Me hath lifted up his heel 
against Me'' (v. 18). But, even now, on the very eve 
of His betrayal. He was striving with intense longing 
to win the fallen Apostle. 

We see how perfectly thoughtful, and tactful, He 
was with that evil soul, from the fact that, when He 
had to identify him for St. John, He whispered, so 
that only the two inquirers heard. Nor would He, 



SAINT JOHN 175 



even thus softly, breathe the traitor's name, for fear 
of at once revealing him to all the Eleven, to his public 
shame, and so precipitating his final downfall. Fur- 
thermore, He took advantage of the custom of giving 
a morsel to the favored guest at a banquet, like the 
later courtesy of drinking the health of the guest of 
honor, and bestowed this mark of love upon Judas. 
It seems that he was almost won by this gift of the 
"sop,'' for Satan, the very king of evil, hastened to 
enter his heart, fearing that his job would be spoiled 
{v, 27). Jesus knew that it was hopeless, then, to save 
him from spiritual disaster. But when self-will in 
Judas had, unresisted, fully attained its purpose, there 
would come a moment of revulsion of feeling, when 
it would hang suspended, between repentance, which 
is sorrow for hurting Christ, and remorse, which is 
pity for self suflfering from a guilty conscience. Our 
Lord planned to extend that moment. Therefore, He 
urged Judas, 'What thou doest, do more quickly,' hop- 
ing that he might thus obtain a greater opportunity to 
choose repentance, and salvation. 

Yet the Heart, which practiced this heroic charity, 
was very human. Thus, He felt sorely oppressed by 
the traitor's presence. ''Now is My Soul troubled," 
He said, sadly. And, when Judas had gone out. His 
words show a deep feeling of intense relief {v, 31). 
He was our own Human Brother, as well as our all- 
loving God, in His treatment of His incredibly false 
friend, and we must strive to follow Him, even though 
it be "afar off." 



176 SAINT JOHN 



Jesus, the ^'Shepherd and Bishop" of the Christian 
Church, on that last evening before He suffered, gave 
to His Apostles a share of His everlasting Priesthood, 
to be the endowment of the Catholic Ministry. Prob- 
ably the foot-washing was meant in part as a cere- 
mony of ordination, like that by which Moses conse- 
crated Aaron and his sons (Ex. xxix:4). For He 
commissioned them to wash away the dust of the 
earthly pilgrimage from the feet of their fellow- 
servants by Absolution {v, 14; xx:22f.); and after 
He had celebrated the first Eucharist, He gave them 
authority to do as He had done (St. Luke xxii: 19; 
I Cor. xi: 24 f.). 

The generous love of our Head in making these 
magnificent gifts to the faithful is seen to be all the 
greater, from the fact that He does not allow them to 
depend upon the holiness of the one who administers 
them. ''Verily, verily, I say unto you," He declared 
in His doubly solemn way, ''He that receiveth whom- 
soever I send, receiveth Me" {v. 20). Once before He 
had given them this ambassadorial authority, but with 
the significant difference that then He had said simply, 
''Whosoever receiveth you receiveth Me" (St. Matt, 
x: 40). In the meantime, Judas had represented Him, 
and He wanted them to know that even the traitor's 
ministerial acts were valid. Thus, He will not permit 
the people to be deprived of the means of grace by the 
un worthiness of the priest. 

Moreover, in His eyes, a Church does not cease to 
be holy, even though it contains false disciples. To 
teach this, He said to the Church in the Upper Room, 



SAINT JOHN 177 



"Ye are clean, but not all/' They did not as a body 
lose the note of holiness, even though one of them 
was a traitor to their Lord. Thus, Jesus Christ wishes 
us to continue faithful communicants of His Qiurch, 
though laymen, or even the very priests at the altar, 
prove disloyal to Him. , 

^5ttr0liap after tSe W^xt^ ^untiap fn Eent 

^roublinc anti Comfortinc Jfeisuja 

There were three occasions, which St. John links 
together by the strong Greek verb he uses only therein, 
when our Lord was ''troubled.'' The first time was 
at the grave of St. Lazarus, when He voluntarily as- 
sumed the suffering of the sisters (xi:33, R. V. 
Marg.). The second was when the appearance of the 
Greek Gentiles made Him realize more poignantly 
than before the bitterness of His approaching Passion 
(xii: 2.y^, This was natural, human pain which came 
uninvited but was borne gladly for our sake. It was 
the third affliction which our Saviour endured un- 
willingly, because it was due to the disloyalty of His 
friend. All our infirmities and sicknesses, our grief, 
and the death-penalty of our transgression, He ac- 
cepted joyfully, but He shrinks with loathing and hor- 
ror from the infliction of our sins. 

It is a happiness to know, that at the moment He 
felt the treason of Judas most keenly, the Disciple 
whom He loved lay in His Bosom. Let us picture the 
group. As was the custom, the company reclined, 
three together, on the divans. St. Peter was just be- 
yond our Lord, Who lay between him and St. John, 
so that the young Apostle's head was close to his Mas- 
ter's Breast. When he asked the name of the traitor, 

«3 



17S SAINT JOHN 



he leaned back so that he rested upon our Saviour's 
Heart and looked up into His Face. The place of 
honor, second to that of Jesus in the center, was as- 
signed to St. Peter as the eldest of the Apostolic Col- 
lege; but St. John's was the station of His beloved 
one, whose great devotion soothed His wounded Spirit. 
We also have it in our power to apply that salve of 
holiness and love. Shall we withhold it from Jesus? 

However great was His own suffering, Christ spared 
the Eleven to the utmost of His power. Charity to 
Judas would have forbidden Him even to indicate who 
the traitor was, so that it would become known after 
his departure, had it not been that He could not bear 
to see His faithful Apostles suffer from the fear that 
one of them would turn against Him. It is grateful 
to Jesus, if we imitate His charity. Let us to-day 
resolve to practice it, especially against detraction and 
over-severity toward others. 



iFri&ap acur tfje C&frli feun&ap in Eent 

When Judas had left for his black deed, our Lord 
cried out with triumphant exultation, ''Now was the 
Son of Man glorified, and God was glorified in Him'' 
{v, 31, R. V. Marg.). His meaning was that in per- 
mitting Judas to depart on his mission of betrayal, He 
had made a definite act of Self-surrender to His Voca- 
tion of suffering death for the salvation of the world. 
He could have ordered the arrest of the traitor, but 
instead He had, at that crucial moment, as always, 
chosen to accept His Passion. Thus His Father was 
glorified in His Soul by His act of sacrifice of His 



SAINT JOHN 179 



Human Will. Now, the disciple must imitate His 
Lord in this self-immolation to the glory of God 
(xxi: 19). 

But not only was the Father glorified in the Lamb 
of God by His freely submitting to become our Vic- 
tim; His own Human Spirit was glorified in God. 
''Now," He declared, ''was the Son of Man glorified." 
The same Crucifixion of His Human Will by which 
He magnified His Father, merited, and instantly ob- 
tained, an added beauty for His radiant Soul. And 
we, whenever we exalt God by a thought, or some lit- 
tle act of self-denial for His sake, immediately receive 
an increase of grace and favor in His sight. 

Furthermore, our Lord revealed that the Father 
would glorify His Manhood the more for every suf- 
fering of His Passion. "God shall glorify [the Son 
of Man] in Himself/' He said, "and straightway shall 
He glorify Him.'' The Bloody Sweat of Gethsemane, 
the seven false trials, the crowning of thorns, the 
scourging, and the final hours on Calvary, replete as 
they were with agony, brought not one slightest throb 
of pain which was without its meed of everlasting 
splendor to the Soul of the Crucified. Yet, there is a 
far more wonderful proof of the Father's love than 
this. For He rewards His poor sinful creatures with 
glory, for their every suflfering in His service, just as 
surely as He added to the ineffable beauty of His 
Incarnate Son, for the Acts of His Passion. 

&atnrtidp SLtttt t^t Uj^frb &nntia? in JLtnt 

®|)e fSetD CommanHmrnt 

It is very significant that Jesus never referred to 
His commandments until the eve of His Passion. He 



180 SAINT JOHN 



meant to lay upon His disciples as His special precept, 
the obligation of a love like His own, and He reserved 
this supremely important matter, until it would come 
to them from His death -bed with double sacredness. 
Besides, it would be wisest to leave them something 
hard to do during the years of loneliness that would 
follow His Ascension {y. 33) ; and to strive after the 
ideal of Divine Charity, for His sake, would comfort, 
at the same time that it would humble, them. 

The law of love for our fellow -men is not new in 
substance (cp. Lev. xix:i8; St. Luke x:27). But 
when our Saviour commanded His disciples to love one 
another even as He had loved them, He assigned a 
new and far more compelling motive for that mutual 
charity which had long been of obligation. Now they 
must exercise it for His sake. Whose love for them 
on the Tree was ''strong as death.'' Again, their spir- 
itual love was wider in scope; it would be the super- 
eminent virtue of His Universal Church and by it all 
men would be attracted to the standard of the Cross 
{v, 35). Lastly they had just received a pozi^er for 
holy charity which had never existed before. For the 
great High Priest had for the first time given them the 
Blessed Sacrament of Love. 

We appreciate somewhat of the impression He made 
upon the Apostles by His ''new commandment," from 
the ancient tradition that at the very time St. John 
wrote his Gospel, his one sermon, Sunday after Sun- 
day, was, "Little children, love one another.'' St. 
Jerome relates that his people became weary of his 
repeating this so often, and asked him why he did so. 
"Because," he answered, "it is the Lord's command- 
ment ; and, if it is fulfilled it is enough." May Jesus 
fill our hearts with this deep apostolic charity, dissipat- 



SAINT JOHN 181 



ing all malice and unkindness, and binding us together 

in Himself. » 

3 

W^z JFourtI) 2Uf efe in Hfitt* Read St. John xiv 

W^t ifonttfi feuntiap in Eent 

The warning that St. Peter would soon deny their 
beloved Master, not once nor twice, but thrice, had 
filled the Eleven with sadness, both for our Lord's 
sake and for that of their fellow Apostle. Jesus saw, 
therefore, that for the time their greatest need was 
not so much charity as faith. Therefore, He said to 
them, 'Let not your heart be troubled; believe into 
God, believe also into Me' {y. i, A. V. Marg.). He 
knew that the future looked gloomy indeed to them. 
For one thing, it seemed that they would be homeless 
wanderers in the world. He must make them realize 
that, though they might be without earthly friends, or 
wealth, or even shelter, they would still be safe, body 
and soul, in God and in His own devoted Heart. 

Yet, Heaven, whither they knew He was going, 
seemed a vast distance from the earth. It was not so. 
He assured them. 'Tn My Father's House are many 
mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.'^ 
The ''mansions'' were, literally, the inns which were 
located along the great postroads of the Empire, and 
His Father's ''House" was the universe. Thus He 
meant to teach them that the world, for all their labor 
and strife, would be to them but a rest-house, a place 
of calm peace and refreshment, on the way Home- 
ward. There was no immense abyss between the earth 
and Heaven, but rather a postroad, which He was 
about to point out to them {v, 4). 



182 SAAYT/OHX 



But even these great consolations were not enough 
to comfort them. He knew well that what they could 
not bear was the fear that He would no longer be with 
them as Man. He hastened, therefore, to take away 
this baseless dread. "If I go and prepare a place for 
you," He said, "I come again," and "the 'coming' is 
regarded in its continual present." Jesus 'would not 
leave them orphans* ; He would be perpetually \^oming' 
in the Blessed Sacrament. Indeed, He would abide 
always with them, if they would reserve the Holy 
Mysteries (z'. i8, R. V.: St. Matt. xxviii:2o). Now, 
all their blessings are ours. And ours, too, is that most 
precious promise, "I will receive you imto Myself, that 
where I am there ye may be also.*' For it means that 
a Qiristian*s death is just dear Jesus coming and tak- 
ing his soul in His arms to carry it into another "man- 
sion" of His Father's House. 



S^onHap Sitttv tje jfourtj feunliap in ilrnt 

Our dear Lord declared that He is All. He is the 
Way to God, the Truth to guide us on our pilgrimage, 
and Life to quicken and maintain us unto the end 
(v. 6). And, when time shall be no more. He will be 
to us also the Resurrection and the Life Everlasting 
(xi:25). 

Our race has always needed Him to supply its deep- 
est want. The oldest religion of which we have any 
remains is Taoism, a cry for ''the Way'' from those 
lost Mongolian brethren of ours, ringing out to God 
in the early dawn of human history. For the term 
'^Tao/' modern scholars agree, means a quest of the 



SAINT JOHN 183 



way or passage through which everything enters into 
life, and at the same time the way of highest perfec- 
tion. Man's search ended when Christ came and estab- 
lished His Holy Church, which as if to reveal ''Tao,'' 
took during its earliest years no title but 'The Way" 
(cp. Acts ix: 2; xix: 9, 23, etc., A. V. Marg.). 

Jesus is, therefore, the Viaduct between the two 
worlds of earth and Heaven. For 'no one cometh unto 
the Father, but through Him.' It is this ''Way" upon 
which He would have us concentrate our attention and 
effort, while yet we keep the Divine Goal in view. 
"Whither I go," He told His stricken Apostles, ''ye 
know the way' {vv. 4 ff., R. V.). There is a modern 
painting, of three men racing, which admirably illus- 
trates this teaching of the Christian course. There is 
a boy running freely and joyfully, evidently delighted 
with the exercise, not looking to the end particularly, 
but keeping to the course. Beside him is a mature 
man, whose eyes are fixed upon the goal, toward which 
he is directing his every step. The third of the group 
is an old man, who runs with eyes bent on the ground, 
following the course marked out. The child represents 
the joy of the faithful even in mid-course ; the younger 
of the two adults symbolizes the Christian as he runs 
"looking away to Jesus" ; and the elder personifies the 
prudent care we must exercise to follow the "Way" 
which our Saviour has marked out by His Footsteps. 

^tte^Hap after tfjt iFouttf) ^untia)? in Eent 

Wc^t iSacreUnejas of Crut|) 

Jesus Christ is "the Truth." All knowledge, both 
secular and religious, is from His Divine Mind. He is 
the Light Which is ever 'coming into the world/ more 



184 SAINT JOHN 



and more, as each succeeding generation becomes the 
heir of all the past, and grows increasingly receptive 
to Him. Thus, every kind of truth, whether of art or 
science or theology, is a ray from the True Light 
(1:9). Be it a landscape or a newly discovered prin- 
ciple of physics or biology, Parsifal, or two plus two 
e«-iual.s four, all are the Thoughts of God. In them 
the painter or the scientist, the great musician or the 
schoolboy, has but reflected gleams of the infinite Wis- 
dom in the Word of God. 

It follows that the Catholic Christian is best fitted 
to receive all knowledge. For, by our religion our 
minds are brought into ever closer likeness to the Mind 
of God, and thus we gain a greater receptiveness for 
His Wisdom. Again, our consciences are simply our 
minds acting upon a particular kind of truth, that is, 
the moral law in its various applications to conduct. 
If, therefore, our consciences are cleansed and 
strengthened by righteousness, our minds will be cor- 
respondingly purified and stimulated so that they can 
better discern, not only the truth of morals, but that 
of science, metaphysics and theology. It will help us 
to see how true in experience this principle is, if we 
take one out of a vast number of examples. The sci- 
entific fact upon which all antitoxins are based was 
discovered by a man of mediocre ability, but of deep 
piety and consecration. All the famous chemists of 
the Academy of Science had examined the two globules 
from which the blessed truth was first learned; but 
only poor, dull Pasteur, the butt of scientific Paris, 
observed intelligently the phenomenon that one mole- 
cule was a trifle flatter than the other. His mind had 
become receptive to the new truth, which he deduced, 
because through prayer and sacraments it had grown 



SAINT JOHN 185 



to be more like that of the Word, than was the most 
brilliant intellect among the savants of the Academy, 
It is, therefore, to a man who strove for truth as Di- 
vine and Sacred, one who approached science with a 
mind full of religious dogmas, and whose chief en- 
dowment was holiness, that we owe the countless lives 
saved by the use of antitoxins. 

Jesus is Truth. Skepticism, in the person of the 
Sadducees and Pilate, crucified Him. Shall we, then, 
encourage the enemies of the Word of God? Shall we 
read, and disseminate their books, or even listen to 
their teaching? St. John fled from the building which 
was sheltering the heretic Cerinthus. Let us have no 
part nor lot with false teachers, but rather guard Di- 
vine Truth as we guard the safety of our Lord. 



3fej5uj3 30 SDur Viiz 

Our dear Lord twice revealed Himself as ''the Life,'' 
and on both occasions the light of His saying is the 
more glorious because there was the gloomy back- 
ground of death (cp. xi:25). In the Upper Room, 
that last night, He wanted the Apostles to know that 
through His Self-immolation, He would become to His 
Church the Source of boundless vital power in ''the 
way.'' At the grave of Lazarus, He meant that His 
faithful servants receive from Him a principle of life 
which will survive death, and at the Resurrection will 
fill their souls and bodies with eternal health. 

St. John, writing sixty years after Christ ascended, 
could still say to all the communicants throughout the 
Church that the Humanity of the Incarnate Word was 



186 SAINT JOHN 



''full of grace'' for them, and that of His fulness they 
all had received, and grace upon grace (i:i4, i6). 
The entire body of the faithful in 95 a.d. had drawn 
their souls' fill from the Fountain of Life in Jesus as 
truly as the Apostles themselves had done. Yet, ex- 
cept for the Blessed Sacrament, which is the ''Exten- 
sion of the Incarnation," no Christian of that day could 
possibly have received grace from the Chalice of that 
sacred Manhood which was throned in Heaven. But 
through those same Holy Mysteries, we Twentieth 
Century Christians, like the countless past generations 
of the Church's children, receive spiritual vitality to 
our utmost capacity, from Jesus' limitless fulness of 
life. 

It is notable that the unusual Greek word for "ful- 
ness" occurs only once in St. John's writings, and no- 
where else in the Bible except in St. Paul's Epistles 
to the Colossians and to the Ephesians, both of which 
were written from his Roman prison. The word for 
"grace," also, after being used by our Evangelist four 
times, never again appears in this sense in his writ- 
ings, but occurs with great frequency in the Pauline 
Epistles. Very probably, therefore, St. John's con- 
ception of Christ as "full of grace" and sharing his 
"fulness" with his poor brethren in the world, is a 
reminiscence of his fellowship with the great prisoner 
at Rome. He, himself, according to the tradition, was 
cast into a vat of boiling oil, but his life was miracu- 
lously preserved. It is profoundly touching that the 
two Apostles, through the very stress of the peril and 
suffering they endured, came to realize the "fulness" 
of the Son of Man. In trouble like theirs, we also may, 
if we will, discover the all-sufficiency for our needs of 
Him Who is our Life. 



SAINT JOHN 187 



^5ttt0tiap after tSe S^t^\xt\^ &unliap in Eint 

3fe0U!3* MCap toitf) J^w flDton 

Nothing could be more deeply appealing than the 
extreme delicacy and tenderness of Jesus with His 
Apostles during those last hours before His arrest. 
It was as if He was keeping His finger on their pulse, 
and was sensitive to its slightest slackening or quick- 
ening. Thus, He noticed instantly that they ''heard'' 
when He told them gently that He was going away, 
and the look of intense relief when He hastened to 
add "I come again unto you'' {yv. 2 f., 28). He would 
not lay upon them even more instruction than He saw 
they could ''bear" (xvi: 12). Yet He knew that the 
hour was upon Him when He would go forth into the 
Place of a Skull "bearing His Cross." 

His intense solicitude for them appears also from 
the fact that once and again He sought to soothe the 
trouble out of their hearts {yv, i, 2y), His Heart was 
abundantly "troubled," both by Judas' treason, and 
by the anticipation of His Agony and Death. But He 
completely forgot His own anguish in consoling them. 

No way of Comforting His OKvn did He leave un- 
tried. As tenderly and ingeniously as some wonderful 
mother He suggested one helpful thought after an- 
other : He was only going away to prepare a place for 
them, where they could be with Him always: {yv. 
2i.). They should have another Advocate, abiding 
with them on earth ; He, also, would come continually 
to His "orphans" in the Blessed Sacrament (w, 16- 
18). He was leaving them the precious bequest of 
His peace and His joy (z/. 27; xv: 11). Besides, they 
ought to rejoice over His gain in His going "unto the 
Father/' because the Father was greater than He in 



188 SAINT JOHN 



His Manhood, and would clothe that sacred Humanity 
with ineffable glory and fill the dear Heart with joy 
eternal (v. 28). But they also, almost immediately 
after His Passion, would have a Risen Saviour, over 
Whom they would rejoice as a mother over her first- 
born babe (xvi: 16-20). And they would make an 
infinite profit even out of His Ascension to Heaven, 
because He must depart thither, before He could send 
the Blessed Spirit upon His Church (xvi: 7). This is 
Jesus' Way with His own. May we not commit our- 
selves, body and soul, into His pierced Hands with 
absolute trust? , 

iFtiHag after tfie jFouttS feuntiap m %zvX 

flDur Witt toit|) l^t%\x^ 

The disciples of Him Who was Divine Love Incar- 
nate must be, above all things, practical. "If you love 
Me,'' so runs His test of our Christianity, ''ye will 
keep My commandments" {v, 15, A. V. Marg.). And 
this is one of those propositions which is so true in all 
its terms that its converse also is true. ''If ye keep 
My commandments," He declared a little later, "ye 
shall abide in My love." Thus He urges practical dis- 
cipleship upon both of the two opposite types of Chris-^ 
tians : those who are temperamentally disposed to obe- 
dience must learn to be lovers, not legalists; while 
those who are easily moved to love of Christ and their 
fellows must constrain themselves to obey His com-- 
mandments, laid down in His Gospel and His Church. 

Moreover, we must permit our Lord to manifest 
Himself to us more and more perfectly {v. 21), Let 
us learn a lesson from the error of St. Thomas and 
St. Philip. They supposed that God could only reveal 



SAINT JOHN 189 



Himself to them in an apparition, or theophany {y. 8). 
"Lord/' said St. Philip, ''show us the Father, and it 
sufficeth us." But the most perfect manifestation of 
God was through the revelation of Holiness and Love 
in the life of His Incarnate Son, recorded for us in the 
Gospel. ''If ye had known Me," Christ answered, "ye 
would have known My Father also. . . . He that hath 
seen Me, hath seen the Father.'' In fact, we receive 
in the Life of Jesus a far more perfect revelation of 
God than we could get from many visions of Him. 

Thus did He teach His Apostles the way of fellow- 
ship with Him. And we should realize that they 
actually learned His lessons of obedience, love and 
receptiveness. Thus, St. Thomas remained silent after 
his first question, and assimilated what he was told, 
until it bore fruit in his great confession of Jesus as 
his Lord and God (xx:28). Let us provide Him an 
abode with us {v, 23), and put our life under the 
dominion of His love. > 

SattttHaj after tfit iF0tttt5 feunliag xa Stnt 

3[^)3U0' (gift to t^iia flDltJn 

Our Saviour tells us that His way of giving to us 
is the opposite of that which obtains in the world 
{y, 2y). If we compare the two, we find these among 
other points of contrast: (i) Worldlings give from 
interested motives, hoping to receive as much again, 
or more (St. Luke vi:33f.); while Christ gives to 
those who have nothing wherewith to recompense 
Him. (2) They share only with their friends; He 
oflFers His all freely to friend and foe alike. (3) They 
part only with what costs them nothing, or, what, like 
bequests, they cannot keep; Christ's benefits cost Him 



190 SAINT JOHN 



a Life of suffering, the Cross, and continual labor up 
until now, and He could have retained all without in 
the least diminishing His own happiness. (4) They 
pretend to bestow the most precious gifts, while in 
fact they do not possess them; but Jesus endows His 
beloved ones with His own characteristic peace and 
joy in their perfection and fulness (z/. 27; xv: 11). 

If, however, we think of the world's gifts in our 
Lord's comparison as being the temporal blessings of 
our natural life, our experience again justifies His 
saying, ^'Not as the world gives, give I unto you." 
For earthly joys are so constituted as to give the 
greatest pleasure at the beginning. They serve us with 
their best wine first, then bring on that which is worse. 
But C3irist's gifts ''grow in power and fulness of 
blessing.'' He keeps the good wine until the last. 

The blessing of peace is an excellent example. The 
world cries, ''Peace, peace, when there is no peace" 
(Jer. vi: 14). But Jesus bequeathed us His peace, to 
comfort us in trouble and to save us from moral 
cowardice (1/. 2y^ \ for that legacy from our Saviour 
is the sure "confidence of faith and fellowship with 
God." May dear Jesus give us, morning by morning, 
His Kiss and His Greeting of Peace (xx: 19, 26). 



[The following Meditations (to page 215) on Chapters xv- 
xvii are intended for Ascensiontide and Whitsuntide, because 
they constitute the only appropriate part of th^ Gospel for 
those Seasons. It seems better to place our studies on this 
section here, in order not to break the continuity of the sacred 
text. The reader should pass them by at this time and con- 
tinue the Lenten Meditations.] 



SAINT JOHN 191 



JFor 9ljBcenjiiontilie* Read St. John xv 

aiscengfipn 2Dap 

The beautiful parable of the Vine and Its branches 
was very probably spoken by Qirist as He stood in 
the Temple. It is certain, that He had left the Upper 
Room and was at some point on His way to Gethsem- 
ane ; we know also that His Father's House was open 
after midnight on this one day in the year, and ac- 
cordingly, with great authorities, we shall think of 
Him as remaining there until He had finished His High 
Priestly prayer (xvii). How full of sacred associa- 
tions it was for them all! There, on Mount Moriah, 
Melchizedek had offered his sacrifice to the ''Most High 
God,'' 'and there, also, Abraham had, in intention, 
offered his son as a willing victim (Gen. xiv: i8ff. ; 
xxii: 14; cp. 2 Chron. iii: i). 

Before them, crowning the portal of the temple, was 
fastened a great golden vine heavy with clusters. ''I 
am the true Vine," said our Lord ; and later He added, 
''Ye are the branches." He is not simply the stem, but 
the entire Plant, including in Itself every tiny shoot 
and new graft. Thus He would teach us, that we of 
the Church on earth are in vital union with Him in 
Heaven. Wherever we go, we are still branches of 
this Heavenly Vine, and must bear fruit unto It (v, 
16). Apart from Him, we can do nothing iyv, 4f.). 
The vine wood is, indeed, entirely worthless ; probably 
from the Temple Mount they could see the fires of 
Kidron burning the withered clippings from the vine- 
yards. The more fruitful we are, therefore, the more 
joyfully certain we can be that we are being strength- 



192 SAINT JOHN 



ened by grace from Jesus' Soul, as the fruitful branch 
is nourished by sap from the heart of the vine. 

One other lesson, which is set in the forefront of 
this discourse, is that the Apostles were ''clean through 
the Word'' of Christ, that is, through the whole course 
of His instruction and discipline during their three 
years together. Probably He was referring to the fact 
that according to the Mosaic Law a vine was held to 
be ''unclean'' for three years during which time much 
of its natural growth had to be pruned away. If, there- 
fore, we are allowed to sufifer, let us consider it a sign 
that, through our union with Jesus in Heaven, we are 
fruitful, wherefore the Divine Husbandman is "cleans- 
ing us," that we may bring forth more fruit (v, 2). 
Suffering is a positive proof to Christians that God is 
in His Heaven, and all is well with us on earth. 



jFrtlsBp fn tSe flDctabe of a^cengJion 

Dijjcontent toiti) 2)ur JFruitfuInejija 

There is an almost incredible object held out to the 
ambition of the Christian in our Lord's revelation that 
our Heavenly Father is glorified in our bearing much 
fruit. Every fresh cluster adds to the praise, and the 
joy, of the Divine Husbandman. By the same means 
of fruitfulness, moreover, we 'become Christ's disci- 
ples' {v, 8 R. v.). "Something is always wanting to 
the completeness of discipleship. A Christian never 
^is,' but always is 'becoming' a Christian and it is by 
his fruitfulness that he vindicates his claim to the 
name." Besides, we must accept the challenge which 
our Saviour offers us when He says, "Even as the 
Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you ; abide ye 



SAINT JOHN 193 



in my love" {v, 9 R. V.). If we are living in the light 
and warmth of Jesus' Charity we cannot but be fruitful. 

Let us then be discontented with our productiveness. 
Our Lord was not satisfied even with His eleven great 
Saints. He spoke as if they had made small progress 
even in knowing Him, saying, "If ye had known Me," 
implying that even after all the revelations of their 
years with Him, their knowledge of His Personality 
was still far from complete (xiv : 7) . Again, He urged 
them to aspire after greater devotion to Him, saying, 
'7/ ye loved Me," — suggesting that He wanted them 
to consider the great love they already had for Him as 
nothing (xiv: 28). But what must He think of our 
complacent contentment with our slight knowledge of 
Him, and with that feeble affection which is our best 
response to His Divine love? 

Yet, for all our disappointing dullness, our Lord is 
invincibly optimistic about us. Immediately after He 
had clearly seen the failure of the Apostles to discern 
the Father in Him, He said with perfect confidence, 
'From now on ye know Him, and have seen Him.' 
Moreover, He recognizes and values to the full even 
our imperfect response to Him. 'Ye hear My Word,' 
He said to the eleven; and again He relied upon His 
Own 'beholding Him' after He had departed from the 
world's sight (xiv : 24, 19). Finally, His patience with 
our slowness is inexhaustible. When it seemed that 
after all the Apostles had not attained to belief in His 
Oneness with His Father simply on His Word, He 
was ready to begin over again with them at the first 
lesson of faith : ''Believe Me^' He pleaded, "that I am 
in the Father, and the Father in Me; or else believe 
Me for the very works sake' (xiv:ii). Surely, we 

14 



194 SAINT JOHN 



must strive to bear more and sweeter fruit for this 
King of Divine Charity and Lover of our poor sinful 
souls. X 

&attttDap in tSe flDrtabe of Ja0cen0i0n 

©raper anH £Dur ^iscentieli Horn 

''If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask 
whatsoever ye will and it shall be done unto you." 
Thus did dear Jesus reveal to us the spirit of prayer. 
''The petitions of the true disciples are echoes of 
Christ's words.'' Whether our prayer be supplication 
for temporal or spiritual benefits, intercession, thanks- 
giving or worship, it must always be in harmony with 
His teaching in the Holy Scriptures. But on this sole 
condition, we can be absolutely certain that our devo- 
tion obtains a full and overflowing response from 
Infinite Love. 

For with our prayers are joined those of our 
Saviour, Who "ever liveth to make intercession" for 
us (Heb. vii:25). What loving solicitude fills His 
continual prayer, we know from that which He oflFered 
in the Temple (xvii). But. not content with assuring 
us that He is forever lifting up those pierced Hands 
on our behalf. He has revealed to us certain ways in 
which we can touch His Sacred Heart to plead for us 
with special tenderness : ( i ) by loving and obeying 
Him (xiv:i4f.); (2) by faith in Him as our God 
and Saviour (xvii: 6-9) ; (3) by especial need of Him 
(xvii: 11-16) ; (4) by unworldliness (xvii : 14-16). 
One more means there is of making Him intercede 
most earnestly for us, but this we must never use. It 
is by falling into mortal sin (i St. John ii: i). 

The supreme assistance of our risen Lord is, how- 



SAINT JOHN 195 



ever, through the perpetual re-petition of Calvary 
which He makes upon His altar throne (Rev. v:6). 
For by His very Presence in Heaven He continually 
memorializes before the Father what He did for our 
salvation on the Cross. Our prayers must be effectual 
with this Divine High Priest to plead them at His 
Heavenly Altar. Let us then, praying ''through Jesus 
Christ,'' take the Heart of God by storm, for ourselves 
and for all who need our intercessions. 

feuntiap in X^t flDctafae of aigcengjton 

£Dur C|)ri}3tian 3foH JFuUilleU 

It was only when our Lord reached the very eve of 
Good Friday that He spoke of 'His joy' {v. \\), He 
was then looking forward to showing that supreme 
love of the man who lays down his life for his friends 
{v, 13) ; and His gladness in thus loving us to the 
uttermost was His characteristic joy. Ours He knew 
would be more natural and more composite than His 
own unmixed heroic happiness in Self-sacrifice. But 
He desired that His joy should have a place in us in 
order that ours might be sweetened and sanctified. 

Second only to His example in thus preferring the 
happiness of complete Self-oblation to all others, is 
that of His holy Forerunner (iii:29). For it was as 
the Baptist stood on the brink of his passion, with his 
ministry ending in failure before his eyes, and face to 
face with imprisonment and death, that he said, ''My 
joy is fulfilled." 

It is the aged writer of the Fourth Gospel who 
alone records these sayings of his first master and of 
his eternal King. In his long experience, he had 



196 SAINT JOHN 



learned his lesson, that natural happiness turns stale 
and bitter if it be not mingled with some measure of 
the joy of self-sacrifice. He tells us, moreover, that 
our Ascended Lord looks upon us as His "friends'' 
{v. 14), and surely there can be no such felicity as 
that which belongs to the friends of God. But it 
means that He counts every faithful Christian as an 
Abraham (St. James ii: 23) ; and as the Father of the 
Faithful had, there on the Temple Mount, been will- 
ing to offer what He loved best, so must we be. Then 
our joy shall be fulfilled, though like St. John, we are 
lonely and old and persecuted, for we shall be the 
friends of the Crucified in Heaven. 

flDur C^atreH anti Hobe of ti^e SKOiorlti 

Twice over, and the second time during the solemn 
hour in the Temple, Christ told the Eleven that the 
world hated him, and warned them that they must 
expect to be the object of its hostility just as He had 
been {w, 18 f., cp. vii:7). The sixfold repetition of 
''the world'' in His statement brings out its multiform 
antipathy to Him and to His Church. He emphasizes, 
also, the fact that it hated Him ''without a cause'' {v. 
25), by using the same word for this which had ex- 
pressed ''the gift of God" to man (iv: 10). He came 
bringing to the world God's gratuitous love and grace, 
and it repaid Him with gratuitous hatred and a Cross. 

Yet His Heart was full of Divine charity for it, 
still. It was because he knew this, that St. Jude ex- 
claimed in amazement over His saying that He would 
manifest Himself unto His Own, and not unto the 



SAINT JOHN 197 



world (xiv: 22^?). He felt certain that Christ longed 
to reveal Himself to all mankind. For had not his 
Master said again and again that He loved the whole 
world and had come to save it? (iii: 14 ff. ; xii:47.) 
And was it not a prophecy about the Messiah that He 
need only ask and His Father would give Him the 
heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of 
the earth for His possession? (Ps. ii:8.) Many a 
night, as he knew, his Lord had spent on His knees 
praying for the fulfillment of that promise. St Jude 
was right in his assurance that there was no lack in 
His infinite longing for the salvation of every soul 
which comes into the world (i St. Tim. ii:4). 

But the world would not receive its Saviour. It was 
not the Pharisees, or Pilate, who led in dealing out to 
Him the most shameful of capital punishments; it was 
the Sadducees, the representatives of the world-spirit, 
who cajoled and bullied the others into assisting them. 
How, then, can we love that which has ever hated our 
Head? How can we adopt its anti-Christian conven- 
tions and fashions? We cannot be Jesus' friends, if 
we do not hate the sin of the world, and seek the 
salvation of every sinner in it. 

^tte0liag in t|e flPctatie of %uzm\Wi 

Jfelabess /ftJot Greater Si)an Sfjeir iKine 

Both our Lord and His Beloved Disciple have laid 
great emphasis on that saying of Christ, ''The servant 
is not greater than his Lord." As precious and crowd- 
ed as the interval was before His arrest. He repeated 
it solemnly then, although He had said it in the Upper 
Room {v. 20, cp. xiii:i6). St. John records His 



198 SAINT JOHN 



words on both occasions, although St. Matthew and 
St. Luke had both given them; and he alone uses for 
''servant'' the strong word ''slave.'' He had looked up 
through a rift in Heaven and had seen the Slave of 
the Universe seated upon the Throne of God. After 
that the servile title for a disciple was royal and 
Divine. 

It was in order to commend to us precepts which He 
knew would be very much against our natural self- 
love, that our Saviour directed us to imitate His own 
humility and meekness. First, then, we must wel- 
come the opportunity to perform menial services for 
our brethren. St. Peter particularly, always bore in 
mind the lesson which he had learned when God In- 
carnate had bathed his feet. Long afterward, remem- 
being Jesus girded with a towel, he thus exhorted his 
clergy : "All of you gird yourselves," or, literally, "be 
aproned," "with humility, to serve one another." Sec- 
ondly, we must bear ill treatment with patience. It 
was a very dear and helpful thought to St. John and 
his people, expecting the terrible Domitian persecution, 
that their Lord had, on the brink of His own Passion, 
shown His perfect meekness in bearing the injuries of 
His enemies. 

The last of the three great lessons which the Divine 
Servant taught His fellows, was given at the begin- 
ning of their discipleship, and was different from these, 
although related to them (St. Luke vi:4o). For then 
He had used His familiar exhortation to enforce the 
truth that their disciples would not rise above them- 
selves in the Christian virtues. He would teach us that 
we must strive to imitate our Master in Heaven, not 
only for His glory and our own soul's sake, but also 



SAINT JOHN 199 



for the welfare of those whom we instruct by word and 
example. The Christian is to be, himself, a master to 
his weaker or less fortunate brethren, and by his own 
lowliness and love ''to ring the rising-bell in the dor- 
mitory of other souls." , 

dfllelinegliap fn tje flDctabe ot jagfcm^ion 

£Dur Witnei3!3 to Ci^ri^t 

There is no glory of our Christian life greater than 
that which is conferred upon us by our privilege, and 
duty, of bearing witness to our ascended Lord. This 
is Divine work, in which He even associates us with 
the Blessed Trinity; for the Father ''hath borne wit- 
ness of Him,'' He 'bore record' of Himself, and the 
Holy Ghost continually "beareth witness" of Him (cp. 
y\2i7\ viii: 14; v, 26 i.). For us to confess Him in 
our personal life and teaching is thus to join in a Di- 
vine Chorus. But Jesus associates us in this especially 
with the Holy Ghost. Our testimony, which is exter- 
nal, is the counterpart of that interior illumination of 
His whereby He takes of Christ's and shows it unto 
the Church (xvi: 14). 

Accordingly it is impossible to exaggerate the im- 
portance to our Lord of what we are, because the wit- 
ness of a genuine Christian life is more convincing to 
the world than that of the inspired Bible and the in- 
fallible Catholic Church. 

Yet, our Christian character is only in the making, 
and we are not to consider it a failure when it seems 
to compare unfavorably with pagan types around us. 
It is a much more difficult thing, at first, to possess 
both courage and meekness, efficiency and humility, 
and to reconcile them in speech and conduct, than it is 



200 SAINT JOHN 



to be simply keen, self-reliant, successful people of the 
world. Thus Cephas displayed natural courage and 
loyalty at our Lord's arrest (xviii: lo), but when He 
was required to unite with these qualities the Christian 
virtues of obedience and longsuffering, he deserted his 
Lord ignominiously, and afterwards denied Him thrice. 
What a contrast to him is Caiaphas, the clear-headed, 
masterful, successful high priest of the Jews. But the 
Christian Faith developed Cephas into the Stone-man 
and the Saint, whose life and teaching have helped the 
Blessed Spirit mightily in filling the New Jerusalem 
with citizens ; while Caiaphas went down to his grave 
universally hated by his own people and with the curse 
of the Talmud upon him. \ 

%\z flDctafae SDap of tSe Slsfccndion 

The call to fellowship with our Saviour is as real 
for us to-day as it was for the Apostles and the holy 
women. For His very presence with us, whether as 
God, everywhere we go, or as the God-Man, in the 
Blessed Sacrament, constitutes His invitation to visit 
with Him. He had only to appear at Bethany, and the 
holy sisters felt that they were summoned to Him. 
*The Master has come and calleth for thee,'' St. Mar- 
tha said to St. Mary, when in fact He had done this, 
not in words, but simply by being in their home. 
Moreover, He has told us that He expects us to ''be- 
hold Him" even now when He is throned in Heaven. 
And what He means by this, practically, is admirably 
interpreted by the Greeks who came to seek Him (xii: 
2ofif.). For they had begged that they might ''see 
Jesus." Yet they had been gazing at Him and listen- 



SAINT JOHN 201 



ing to His preaching, from a little distance. They 
rightly considered that really to see Him meant to 
come into His immediate Presence and lay their 
thoughts before Him. In this same, true, sense, we 
may behold Him as often as we will. 

It is but honestly due to our Lord that we should let 
Him abide with us. St. John impresses this dear duty 
upon us in the following way : he records our Lord's 
comforting assurance that He has gone away into 
Heaven in order that He may prepare a mansion for 
us, and then, His gracious, and appealing, promise that 
He and His Father will come to the soul that loves 
Him and 'make their mansion' with it (xiv: 2 and 23, 
literally translated). He has used in these two sayings 
a word for "''mansion," or '"rest-house," which appears 
nowhere else in the Scriptures, to point his meaning, 
that the dear Carpenter is building for each of us a 
palace in Heaven and asks in return the hovel of our 
sinful heart. 

Fellowship with Him is for us a little foretaste of 
Heaven. ''Ye,'' said our Lord to the Apostles, ''are 
with Me from the beginning (z\ 27). Their life at His 
Side had been a timeless present. There had been, as 
it were, no past nor future, but an endless now. Their 
hard life with its labors and anxieties, sufferings and 
sorrows, had been transfigured by light from Heaven. 
It was the beginning of their immortality, because they 
were with Jesus. 



2n SAINT JOHN 



Jtot tit JFibe Dap0 JFoIIotoingt Read St. John xvi 

iptfliap after t^t SDttabt ot SL0ttn0ion 

€|)r$j3t Venning t|)e ©araclete 

The most difficult part of our Lord's labor in con- 
soling His Apostles was His task of persuading them 
that it was expedient for them that He should depart 
to His Father (v. 7). But, even that night in the Tem- 
ple, He seems to have been in a measure successful, by 
His glowing descriptions of the Paraclete Whom He 
would send to them from Heaven, for He convinced 
them that He must ascend to His Father before He 
could bestow that Divine Gift upon them. Not until 
the whole process of Redemption had been consum- 
mated by His Enthronement, could the Spirit-bearing 
Church be sent forth for its work of Sanctification. 
Only after He had been consecrated as the ''Bishop 
of our souls" at the Right Hand of His Father, could 
He ordain the Apostolic Ministry by the Pentecostal 
Gift. And before the end of the first Eastertide He 
must have completely won their hearts to love of His 
Holy Spirit, for we read that they returned from bid- 
ding Him farewell full of joy and thanksgiving (St. 
Luke xxiv: 52 f.). 

When we realize that Christ had taught them to 
think of the Holy Ghost as ''another Comforter'' like 
Himself, we are not surprised that they looked for- 
ward with such joy and eagerness to His coming. The 
title "Paraclete" is peculiar to St. John, and means 
both a Comforter, or Strengthener, of their souls, and 
an Advocate for them and for the success of their 
ministry, before the throne of God. So prodigally is 
Divine charity lavished upon us, that we must have 
tv/o such Paracletes, Christ and His "Other Self." 



SAINT JOHN 203 



Our Saviour commended His Holy Spirit to His 
Church in another way, also : He has left it to us to 
reverence and honor the blessed Paraclete. For He 
said that He glorified His Father and that the Holy 
Spirit glorifies Him, but He seems to expect the Cath- 
olic Church to glorify His Spirit. In the same way, He 
came in the Father's Name, and the Comforter was 
sent in His ; we, Christ's brethren, have the glorious 
vocation of going forth in the Name of the Holy Spirit. 

feattttdap atttt t5e jSDctafat ot tfie !a0rm0ion 

Wcjz l^olp ig^osBt Conbertins X^z MCorlU 

Not for the faithful alone did Jesus send His Holy 
Spirit from His Human Heart in Heaven into the 
heart of His Mystical Body on earth. The plan of the 
Blessed Trinity in that Mission of the Advocate was, 
in part, that He should convince the world ''of sin, and 
of righteousness, and of judgment,'' in order that it 
might be converted {vv. 8-11). It seemed hopeless to 
the Apostles that they could win the hard hearts which 
had rejected the pleading, the signs of Divine Power 
and Love, and the attraction of the Personality of In- 
carnate God (xv: 22-26). Then our Lord promised 
them the Holy Ghost, to be their mighty Helper ; they 
should have Two Paracletes, Both infinitely full of 
yearning love for souls. And the success of this 
doubling of the boundless measure of Divine assist- 
ance was apparent on Pentecost. For the thousands 
who had shouted ''Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" now 
came crying, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do to 
be saved.' They were convicted of sin by the Holy 
Ghost, 'because they had not believed in the Lord of 
Glory' (Acts ii:23, 36). 



204 SAINT JOHN 



But many people, who are convinced of sin, will not 
admit the possibility of their becoming righteous. 
They contend that the best they can do is to lead a 
moderately good life, free from most of the greater 
sins. The Holy Ghost is continually convincing these 
souls, by showing them the perfect Life of ''the Man 
called Jesus," ''Who was in all points tempted like as 
we are," and yet was righteous and was accepted by the 
Father {v. lo). He leads them, also, to consider the 
holy lives of Christians who love their invisible 
Saviour, and thus proves to them that there must be 
mysterious Sacramental conduits of grace from His 
Soul in Heaven to theirs on earth. 

Finally, this powerful Advocate is daily persuading 
men that there is an inevitable conflict between mate- 
rialism, godless ambition, and irreligion in all its forms, 
and God, by making them realize that the Prince of 
this world was condemned from the Cross. For they 
instinctively approve of the Crucified ; they cannot say, 
even to themselves, that they have no sympathy with 
Him. But, by their very confession that He is the Per- 
fection of all that is holy and loving, they condemn the 
spirit of the world which slew Him. The Cross shows 
them the right standard of success and failure, and the 
true issues of life and death. Rightly, therefore, did 
our King bid us "Be of good cheer," for by His Pas- 
sion. He has indeed "overcome the world." 

Wc)Z ^njseen Comralie of flDur ©ilgrimage 
Another of the anxieties which beset the little group 
of the faithful, gathered there in the Temple, was the 
fear of an unknown future, through which they must 



SAINT JOHN 205 



wander as in a trackless wilderness. Dear Jesus 
hastened to dispel this cloud. They should have a Di- 
vine Guide, His Vicar, Who would reveal to them 
His Mind and His Will infallibly {y, 13). This com- 
pleted the gracious promise given them in the Upper 
Room of their 'other Paraclete' who was to accompany 
them throughout their pilgrimage (xiv: 16 f.). Every 
kind of comradeship, possible even to the Divine Spirit, 
is thus assured to the Church. For He 'abides with us 
forever,' as our Comforter, Who begins giving us His 
eternal fellowship even while we are yet poor sinners. 
Miss Keller has said that Love will find a way into the 
minds even of those who are deaf and blind. Has He, 
Who is the Infinite Love of God, found an entrance 
into our consciousness ? Do we let Him comfort us in 
trouble? Do we, like our Lord, ''rejoice in the Holy 
Spirit," in our times of prosperity? (St. Luke x:2i 
R. V.) 

Secondly, 'He abideth by our side,' during our pres- 
ent life as our Advocate, always ready with His power- 
ful help. With infinite Personal devotion to His clients 
He espouses their cause as if it were His own, defends 
them from their enemies, gives them His counsel in 
their difficulties, and acts as their Solicitor at the bar 
of Heaven. 

Finally He is the Sanctiiier 'Who is in us for the 
work of our salvation. Let us try always to remember 
His Presence there. As St. Austin says. He is in our 
souls, "not only as the impetuous stirring Wind of 
heroic Energy, nor only as the Flame of Divine Love, 
but as the Holy Dove," brooding there until we bring 
forth the graces and virtues which He loves (Acts 
ii: 2 f ; St. John i:32). 



206 SAINT JOHN 



Qpanliag in i\t acaSttsun j©ctab£ 

€|)e Spirit of Supplication? 

In His office as Sanctifier, the Paraclete must con- 
vict, not only the world, but the children of the 
Church. We can feel Him tugging at our consciences, 
seeking to convince us of our sin, and to inspire us 
with repentance and good resolutions. If we are over- 
tender and scrupulous, we should receive great encour- 
agement from this activity of the Divine Advocate, for 
we can rest assured that He will show us plainly if we 
have committed even venial sins. But if we are dis- 
posed to think of ourselves as moderately good people 
who have done nothing which especially requires Di- 
vine forgiveness, we must let the Holy Spirit of Love 
lead us to careful, regular, examination of conscience. 

Yet we must not rest contented with sinlessness, 
even if we could attain to it perfectly. It has been 
rightly said that the blush of shame over wounding 
Jesus is but the first ray from the Rising Sun of 
Righteousness. Nor will He be satisfied until we are 
filled with Divine Light and Love to the fartherest 
corner of our soul. His last care before He left the 
Temple to begin His Passion was to pray His Father, 
'That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be 
in them and I in them" (xvii: 26). 

Consequently, He would have us judge the 'Trince 
of this world'' by a life wholly dedicated to the love of 
Him. 'T pray," He pleaded in His Great Intercession, 
''that Thou shouldest keep them out of the Evil One" 
(xvii: 15 R. V. Marg.). He would have us preserved 
from even resting within the domain of Satan. And 
through His Grace He makes over to us the victory by 
which He utterly condemned the Earth Spirit from the 



SAINT JOHN 207 



Cross. Rightly, then, may we adopt the words of a 
saintly bishop, and think of dear Jesus as saying to us 
through the discourses and the prayer of those early 
hours of Good Friday: ''Ye are sharers of My vic- 
tory, consorts of My reign, and participants of My 
glory/' , 

'atttejSliap in tSe aMSrtgttn flDctabe 

Wc}t Spirit of ^rutit) 

St. John, in his practical, systematic way, gives us, 
out of our Lord's instructions, what we may call the 
Stairway of Salvation. Of course, he teaches that the 
first step is the love of Jesus which leads to faith. 
Thus, our Lord said to His Apostles, ''Ye have loved 
Me and have believed that I came out from God" {y. 
2y). Accordingly, if we are struggling with a difficult 
doctrine of our religion, our best method of approach 
will be by increasing our love of God, through prayer 
and holy deeds for His sake. "The things of men," 
said Pascal, "must be understood in order to be loved, 
but the things of God must be loved in order to be 
understood." 

From faith, we ascend to more perfect knowledge 
of the truths we have already accepted. "We have be- 
lieved, and know,'' — this was the Apostles' sequence 
from childlike faith, based simply on their Master's 
Word, to an ever clearer understanding of the teach- 
ings thus implicitly adopted. Even if Divine truth is 
perceived by a mind which is not prepared for it by 
love and faith, such learning remains merely intellec- 
tual, and barren. Both Caiaphas and Christ agreed 
that it was "expedient" that "one Man should die for 
the people," but in the false high priest the knowledge 



208 SAINT JOHN 



of that great truth brought forth naught but wicked- 
ness (xi:5o; v, 7). The very best and safest way, 
therefore, for us to gain a deeper knowledge of a 
Christian dogma is by lovingly using the spiritual ex- 
ercises which are based upon it. If, for example, we 
would understand Divine forgiveness better, let us 
practice regular confession of our sins. 

Increased knowledge is a step toward more perfect 
prayer. 'Tn that day," said our Lord, referring to the 
time following His Resurrection, "ye shall ask Me no 
question" ; and again He said, ''In that day ye shall 
ask," that is, ''pray," ''in My Name" {vv, 23 R. V. 
Marg., 26). When their intellectual difficulties had 
been solved, He expected them to use the spiritual 
energy thus saved in their devotions. As we advance 
in understanding our religion, are we developing pro- 
portionately in our prayer life ? 

Finally, we are to ascend from prayer into the 
Beatific Vision. 'Ask,' dear Jesus urged, 'in order that 
your joy may be fulfilled,' and the original shows that 
He was then referring to the perfect consummation of 
our happiness in Heaven {y. 24). Thus He gives us 
the principal rule governing Christian prayer, which is, 
that whatever we ask God for must help us on toward 
seeing Him face to face in Heaven. This then is His 
Stairway of Salvation ; and it is so truly supernatural 
that we must have the guidance of the Spirit of Truth 
in order to mount it. Dear Jesu ! Let thy good Spirit 
lead me forth into the land of righteousness. 



SAINT JOHN 209 



W^t Spirit of (Knit? 

Our best way to help Christ obtain the answer to His 
great Prayer for the unity of the Church {yv. i, 21-23) 
is to let the Holy Ghost draw us individually into closer 
union with Him. In Jesus, we shall become, by grow- 
ing holiness, ''partakers'' more and more of the Mind 
and Heart of God, so that our misunderstandings, 
prejudices, and errors will fall from us (2 St. Pet. i : 4). 

For, if the unity of Christendom is to be that for 
which our Lord besought His Father, it must be like 
the oneness of the Three Divine Persons in the Blessed 
Trinity, a unity of mind, will and nature. 'That they 
may be one as We are," so He prayed ; and again ''that 
they all may be one as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I 
in Thee, that they also may be one in Us'' {yv, 11, 21). 
Consequently, Church Unity must be based upon a 
common mind as to Divine truth, a common will in- 
stinct with love, and a common nature regenerated in 
Christ and nourished by the Sacraments which He and 
His Apostles have ordained. 

This, therefore, is the best way in which we must 
hasten the answer to what is par excellence "the 
Lord's Prayer." We must revive devotion to God the 
Holy Ghost, Who is the very Bond of Love in the 
Holy Trinity Itself, and Who will unite us more close- 
ly to God and so to one another in Christ. We have 
an illustration of what it means when men allow them- 
selves to be thus joined together in the Bond of Divine 
Charity, in the harmony which existed among the three 
Apostles, at one time imprisoned together at Rome. 
St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John were very different 
in temperament ; each one was in fact as unique a per- 

15 



210 SAINT JOHN 



sonality as could be found in the calendar, and the 
Saints are the most individual of people. Yet, through 
their common relation to Christ, they had become one 
in ''Spirit'' with Him and with one another, so that 
their differences were submerged. St. Peter and St. 
Paul ''exchanged pulpits'' ; the Apostle to the Gentiles 
wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, who were St. Peter's 
parishioners, and the Apostle to the Circumcision 
wrote his two letters to the Churches of Asia Minor, 
founded by St. Paul. St. John deepened his already 
great love for St. Peter, and adopted many of St. 
Paul's characteristic conceptions, giving his own in 
return, as we can see from their writings. Then, let 
us begin now to speed the day of Christian reunion, 
by realizing, in thought and action, as never before, 
the truth that we are "joined unto the Lord" and "are 
one Spirit" with Him and with one another (i Cor. 
vi:l7). ^ 

tCSutstia? in tfie QJUfiitsun j©ctabe 

Wc^z ®|3irit of ©raper 

Our Saviour's Highpriestly Intercession was no 
doubt in Aramaic, and the word by which He ad- 
dressed His Father was therefore "Abba" just as it 
was in Gethsemane (St. Mark xiv : 36). But we could 
not well have a more complete contrast than that be- 
tween the erect, severe, majestic Priest with Hands and 
Eyes lifted toward Heaven, and the stricken Sufferer 
in the Garden, lying prostrate upon the earth, while 
the Sweat of Blood poured down from His whole 
Body. Whether in the depths of awful affliction, or 
in calm repose among His Own, He was the same true 
and perfect Son of God. Now He sends His Holy 



SAINT JOHN 211 



Spirit from His Heart unto ours, crying ''Abba, 
Father/' both in our seasons of joyful thanksgiving 
and in those times when "deep calleth unto Deep" 
(Gal. iv:6; Ps. xlii:/). 

It is often made an objection to prayer, that our 
Father knows all that we need before we ask Him, 
and that our petitions are, therefore, superfluous. But 
Jesus prayed for that which had been eternally His own 
and for the due reward of all His labors and suffer- 
ings in the world. ''And now, O Father," was the one 
petition, "glorify Thou Me with Thine Own Self with 
the glory which I had with Thee before the world 
was''; and the other was, 'Glorify Thy Son (through 
His Passion and Resurrection)' {vv, 5, i). Evidently, 
the Christian ought to ask His Heavenly Father even 
for what he would certainly receive if he never bent 
his knees in prayer. 

So vast is the importance of our devotional life, and 
so full is it of power to comfort and strengthen us 
that our Lord purposely said His great Intercession 
aloud, in order that the Apostles might learn the sacred 
science of it and thus be always able, wherever they 
should wander, to claim His own joy for themselves 
at will. "These things I speak in the world," He said 
to His Father, "that they might have my joy fulfilled 
in themselves" {v. 13). Indeed, it was one of the pur- 
poses of the Incarnation, that God willed to set us the 
example by praying with our own human Heart and 
Lips. 



SAINT JOHN 



iptfliap xxi X\z flfllf)it0Utt iDctabe 

Wc^z spirit of don0()i|) 

He Who was the Only-begotten of God is surely the 
very Incarnation of the spirit of sonship. And Jesus 
attributed everything He possessed, except the essen- 
tial glory of His Deity, to the gift of His Father. The 
list which He mentioned gratefully in this one prayer 
includes the following: (i) The Father's Name, (2) 
power over all flesh, (3) the vocation to evangelize 
the whole world, together with the words He was to 
speak, and the endowment of all things necessary for 
this work, (4) the Apostles, (5) the Church, collec- 
tively and individually, and (6) the additional glory 
which He had merited for His Manhood. It is funda- 
mental for the children of God, therefore, that we are 
to ascribe absolutely all we have to our Father. 

Nothing would satisfy Him except that He should 
perfectly identify us with Himself in God's sight. He 
repeated again and again, in the direct form and its 
converse, that we belong to Him, and, in Him, to His 
Father. 'They are Thine," He pleads, ''and all Mine 
are Thine, and all Thine are Mine" ; and again, "They 
are not of the world even as I am not of the world" 
{w. 9, 10, 16). Once more. He said, "As Thou hast 
sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them 
into the world" ; so that the Heavenly Father would 
regard us as having the same mission, needs and dan- 
gers as those of His own Ministry {y. 18). Finally, 
He claims for us that He has shared with us the glory 
of revealing God in the world, and that He will be 
glorified in our lives {vv. 10, 22.^). We ought always 
to think of Him, in Heaven, commending us in this 



SAINT JOHN 213 



way to the Father, so that He gains for us a share of 
His Own Filial prestige. 

We know from His High-priestly Prayer that this 
is very frequently His petition for us in His continual 
intercessions : ''Father, keep them in Thy Name which 
Thou hast given Me" (^. ii A. V. Marg.). The Name 
of God is His Character, or Personality, which was 
revealed in our Lord ; and for the Father to ''keep'' us 
in this Name means that He enables us to live in the 
world as He is in Heaven (i St. John iv: 17). While 
the Good Shepherd was on earth, He "kept'' His Own 
and "guarded" them in this Name {v. 12) ; and this 
must still be His continual care! for our souls. But 
the principal means by which He now makes us true 
children of God, manifesting the "Name" of our 
Heavenly Father, is by sending His own blessed Spirit 
of Sonship from His Heart into ours (Gal. iv: 6). 

&atttrtiap in t|)e afllSit0un flDctabe 

WcjZ ^Spirit of (Srace anti of (Slorp 

Jesus' plan, as He reveals it in His Prayer of Con- 
secration, was to consecrate Himself, through the Holy 
Spirit, in order that His disciples might likewise be 
consecrated, and through them the world be won {v. 
19). Evidently, then, there are two motives which 
compel us to cooperate with Him: First, since He is 
a Priest with the whole world for His parish. He must 
have Sacraments of Love by which to nourish the souls 
of men. Secondly, through our consecration, the dear 
Saviour Who has given us His Life that we may be 
glorified eternally in Him, is glorified eternally in us 
through our manifesting that Life to others {v. 10). 
It is mainly through our consecration that God is 



214 SAINT JOHN 



enabled to reveal Himself to the world. This is what 
Jesus meant when He said, 'The glory which Thou 
hast given Me, I have given them" {v. 22) ; for the 
glory which He shares with us is "the revelation of 
the Divine in man." 

The Greek word which translates the one our Lord 
used for ''consecrate," or "sanctify," means to "set 
apart for God." It is one fundamental condition, 
therefore, of our dedication to our Lord's Service, that 
it must be whole-hearted. Thus Christ could ask for 
the consecration of the Apostles only because 'they 
were not of the world, even as He was not of the 
world.' The other essential of consecration is that we 
must be sanctified "in the truth" which is God's Word 
through Christ, or, in other words the whole Faith of 
His Church {yu. 16 f.). 

If we permit Him thus to consecrate us, by His 
Spirit, as "other Christs" in this dark world, we shall 
be with Him and behold His Divine loveliness in Eter- 
nal Day. "Father," He said, "I will that they also, 
whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, 
that they may behold My glory" {v, 24). For the 
only time, it seems, in all His Ministry, He declared to 
His Father what He willed. Later, in Gethsemane, 
where His Own welfare was in danger. He prayed, 
"Not My Will but Thine be done." But then, because 
it was our eternal happiness which was in question, He 
left off from prayer to declare His Divine Will for our 
salvation. Our Christian hope is sure, therefore; it 
is based upon the very Will of God, Which is love. 
Let us conclude this doctrinal half of our Church Year 
by reciting the children's Act of Hope: "My God, I 
hope in Thee for grace and for glory, because of Thy 
mercy. Thy promises and Thy power." 



SAINT JOHN 215 



JPajijsion 3KMeefe* Read St. John xviii 

W^i Dibine Victim 

By many unobtrusive touches, St. John seeks to 
bring before us the Deity of Christ in His Passion. 
He alone among the Evangelists speaks of His cross- 
ing the Brook Kidron, or, more correctly, the Ravine 
of the Cedars ; and his purpose in this is to remind us 
of David, a type of our Lord, fleeing from his traitor- 
ous son by that very path. Again, he suggests that 
this Second Adam entered a garden to suffer betrayal 
by His enemy and so to rescue our race from the 
results of the First Man's betrayal in Eden. As the 
progenitor of our corrupted humanity had fallen in a 
garden, the Father of our regenerated nature would 
lift Him up, there. In a word, our Evangelist leads 
us to regard Jesus as the Divine Saviour prefigured 
from the first, and throughout the Old Testament 
Scriptures. Moreover, he shows us that God was over- 
ruling the devices of the Jews and bringing in the 
Divine order even through their machinations : ''Jesus 
therefore," he says, ''knowing all the things that were 
coming upon Him, went forth'' to meet His enemies 
and fulfill His own plan for our salvation {v, 4). 

In order to arrest this one, unresisting Man, the 
high priests had obtained a cohort, 600 soldiers, be- 
sides sending two bands of their own officers. Yet, 
He needed to speak only the two words, "I am," and 
the whole band fell prostrate at His feet. This and 
the healing of Malchus' ear were two last signs of His 
Deity which He gave His Apostles in order that their 
faith might not fail when they saw Him die the death 
of a criminal slave. 



216 SAINT JOHN 



Royal, Divine, as He was, we must bear in mind 
with deep and tender devotion that it cost Him dear 
to take upon Him all the sin of mankind from Adam 
unto the last men who shall witness His Second Ad- 
vent. For three hours He struggled in Gethsemane, 
before He could stagger to His Feet under that dread 
universe of wickedness. As St. Austin says, ''He 
groaned. He wept, He cried aloud. How difficult is it 
for Him to rise up Who is weighted down by such a 
mass of inveterate evil.'' Surely He deserves our 
whole hearts, by the double claim of His Deity which 
loved us infinitely well, and of His Humanity, which 
bore our sins upon the Tree of shame. 



Wc}Z DeiciHeia 

A flood of light is cast upon our Lord's Passion by 
two notes which St. John gives us: that Christ ''went 
forth over the Ravine of the Cedars," and that, after 
His arrest. He was led to Annas first {w. i, R. V. 
Marg., 13). For, just across the Kidron, stood two 
cedars under which were built the spacious "booths of 
the sons of Annas" ; and it is from these trees that our 
Evangelist significantly names the valley the "Ravine 
of the Cedars." The buildings belonged to a kind of 
corporation, headed by the unscrupulous old high 
priest, which had a monopoly of the sale of doves for 
sacrifice. They stood on the Mount of Olives, not far 
from Gethsemane ; and very probably it was here that 
our Lord endured the first of the seven false trials. 
It would be a savage joy to the "sons of Annas," 
whose whispers of false witness are cursed by the Tal- 



SAINT JOHN 217 



mud as being the hissings of deadly serpents, to tor- 
ture Jesus. For He had twice broken up their lucra- 
tive sale of doves, — to the poor, at extortionate prices. 

It was thus the world, with its greed of money and 
power and its unscrupulous craft, which was the most 
relentless enemy of our Lord. But the high priests 
would probably have been harmless without the assist- 
ance of the Pharisees, who hated their own Messiah 
because He rebuked them for loveless formalism and 
bigotry and pride. If it was the world which cruci- 
fied Jesus in order to conserve its ''business interests," 
it was aided by the Church of God, grown compliant 
toward the world and cold toward Him. 

The other principal ally of the high priests' party 
was Pilate, who represents weak people, of good in- 
tentions, but with also a willingness to compromise 
with the world and placate it. By every expedient he 
could devise, he strove to win the consent of the false 
accusers to what he knew was a simple act of justice. 
The folly of such half -measures with Jesus' mortal 
enemies, however, appears from the fact that they 
served only to embolden and enrage the Jews, until 
they demanded the most disgraceful and agonizing of 
all death penalties. Evidently, if we are to keep Jesus 
safe from crucifixion in our hearts, we must declare a 
war against His foes, in which there shall be no quar- 
ter given, and no discharge during this life. 

^ntfit^av in ^a00ion aflleeft 

^t* IPeter anU ^U 3fo|)n 

When our Lord announced again, on the way to 
Gethsemane, that all of His Apostles would be oflFend- 
ed because of Him, and would scatter from His side, 



218 SAINT JOHN 



that night, there was a general murmur of protest (St. 
Matt, xxvi: 35). But, as in the Upper Room, it was 
St. Peter who vehemently insisted that he would go 
with his Master to prison and death (St. John xiii: 
36-38). St. John remained silent; yet it was he who 
continued steadfastly at our Lord's side. For we know 
from his intimate knowledge of what passed even at 
the private interviews of Pilate with Jesus, that he 
continued with Him throughout the Acts of His Pas- 
sion, from Gethsemane to Calvary. What a consola- 
tion it is to know that our Saviour had the unspeakable 
comfort of His Beloved Disciple's fellowship and sym- 
pathy during His sufferings ! But each one of us is 
the disciple whom Jesus loves, and we will abide with 
Him faithfully, if we accept his rebukes in humble 
silence. 

After St. Peter had fled a little distance from Christ, 
he recovered Himself, and ''followed Him afar off to 
the court of the high priest" (St. Matt, xxvi: 58). 
That was the second mistake of the dear, loving, 
bungling Apostle. He remained at a distance from 
Divine protection, when he was about to be sorely 
tempted. St. John kept close to Christ. He also was 
tempted to deny his Master, for he was known to the 
household of the high priest, and everywhere he looked 
he met the glance of ridicule and the curling lip of 
scorn, because he was the friend of the despised Naza- 
rene. His prospects, his prestige in the palace, were 
being ruined, he knew. Yet not once did he falter be- 
cause: he was being constantly inflamed at the Divine 
Furnace in Jesus' Heart. 

He is beautifully true to his character as the Apos- 
tle of Love in his care to avoid mentioning the ugly 
details about St. Peter's denials and to excuse him as 



SAIJNT JOHN 219 



well as he can. Thus he omits the oaths and curses; 
and is careful to show that the form of the questions 
put to the older Apostle were such as to indicate the 
disloyal answers. Besides, he tells us that the servants 
and officers were standing around when the maid- 
servant first asked him if he was not Jesus' disciple; 
that the second time he was pressed by more than one ; 
and that, on the last occasion, he was questioned by a 
relative of Malchus, — all details which must have 
greatly increased his terror and confusion, and which 
therefore mitigated the sinfulness of his disloyalty 
{w. i8, 25 f.). Let us be apostles of love, who sup- 
press our own merits, and excuse the faults of our 
brethren. . 

aflleline0tiap in Pagfssion X^zt\ 

^Ije JFall of ^t* IPeter 

The eldest of the Apostles had been plainly and re- 
peatedly warned by his Master that he would not have 
the strength to resist temptation against his loyalty, 
that night. Yet he ventured to place himself in the 
way of a severe spiritual trial, in the midst of his ene- 
mies and apart from the protection of his Lord. This 
error is indicated by St. John, for our warning, by 
the word which he has chosen for the ''court'' of the 
high priests' residence ; for it is the same as that which 
he uses for the sheepfold of the Good Shepherd {v. 
15 R. v., cp. X : I, 16). How often our overmastering 
temptations have arisen from the fact that we had gone 
into the company of those who would weaken our 
faith and cool our love instead of into the flock of our 
true Pastor ! 

The dispositions of St. Peter were exactly those 



220 SAINT JOHN 



which prepare a soul for grave sin. For, first, he 
yielded to depression. As St. Matthew tells us, he 
seated himself with the servants who had arrested his 
Lord ''to see the end" ; he had given up all hope. Sec- 
ondly, he gave way to a spirit of self-indulgence. 
While he knew that Christ was suffering both bodily 
and spiritual agony, he sat down by the fire to warm 
himself. Finally, he was restless. When St. John saw 
him, he was standing {v. i8), but St. Luke and St. 
Matthew show that at times he was seated; hence it 
appears that he was constantly changing his position. 
These then are the steps which lead to grave disloy- 
alty: boasting, keeping afar from Jesus, depression, 
self-indulgence, and restlessness. 

The question arises, however, as to why St. John 
narrated the fall of his beloved friend and fellow 
Apostle, especially since it had been recorded substan- 
tially in the other three Gospels. The answer is right- 
ly given, as follows : ''This instance of human frailty, 
in one so exalted (an instance which the life of the 
great Exemplar Himself could not afford), is given us 
with four- fold emphasis that none may presume and 
none despair/^ ^ 

^Jutistiap in ^agfisfon aoieeft 

3fejsui3 JSeefeinc tl^e JSafetp of flDt|)crj3 

While our Saviour voluntarily surrendered Himself 
to the will of His mortal foes, He took the utmost 
care that He should not lose one of His disciples (yv, 
8 f.). He had planned to draw to Himself the atten- 
tion of the party sent to arrest Him, and allow the 
Apostles to escape; because, at that hour, just before 
dawn, after the strain of the most tragic of all nights. 



SAINT JOHN 221 



and in the confusion, terror and grief of it all, He 
knew that they would not be steadfast. Pursuant to 
this purpose He immediately healed the wound of Mal- 
chus, in order that St. Peter might escape arrest; and 
later, when questioned about His disciples before the 
high priest, He skillfully diverted their fire of insults 
and blows against Himself (St. Luke xxii:5i, w, 

19 ff.). 

It is, however, His charity toward Judas which is 
most amazing. St. John characteristically notes, and 
mentions, that the traitor was standing with the Jews 
when Jesus said ''I am'' {v. 5). Divine Love intended 
that those words should strike responsive chords in the 
memory of the false Apostle. On what memorable 
occasions they had been spoken ! When He had de- 
clared to the Jews, ''Ye shall die in your sins if ye 
believe not that I am,'' and "Before Abraham was, I 
am"; when He had come to them through the storm 
on the Lake, saying, ''I am, fear not !" And only the 
evening before, in the Upper Room, when He had fore- 
told this very perfidy of Judas and had explained, 
''Now I tell you before it come to pass, that when it is 
come to pass, ye may believe that I am" (viii: 24, 58; 
vi : 20 ; xiii : 19). Perhaps, the dear Christ hoped, some 
warning or appeal, associated with His repeated asser- 
tion in these words of His identity with Jehovah, might 
strike home to that false heart and bring it to repent- 
ance. 

There was one other upon whom the boundless 
charity of Christ was spent prodigally, and that was 
Caiaphas. That false priest was still in His thoughts, 
after He had been scourged, and when He was about 
to be crucified (xix: 11). "He that delivered Me unto 
thee," He said to Pilate sorrowfully, "hath the greater 



222 SAINT JOHN 



sin/' that is, a greater sin even than Pilate's. He had 
forgotten His own ''agony and dying," in longing for 
the conversion of Caiaphas. Surely, then, no one of 
us need ever despair. At least we have never done 
more evil than Jndas and Caiaphas, and the Jesu's 
love, the dear ''Hound of Heaven,'' followed them to 
the end. 1 

W^t C0mpa00ipn isl X^t 1BIe00£lr ©ttffin 

^in Qlrucifping C^rijst 

It is not a figure of speech, but a terribly real fact, 
that, in the last analysis, it was neither Romans nor 
Jews, but our sins, which crucified Christ. We can 
trace His Death directly to the three main sources of 
evil in our human heart; of these His slayers were 
merely exponents. For, first, self-zmll rejected the 
Saviour W^lio was not conformed to its own desires. 
The Jews "laid information against Jesus as a dan- 
gerous character; their real complaint against Him 
was precisely this that He was not dangerous. Pilate 
executed Him on the ground that His Kingdom was 
of this world; the Jews procured His execution, pre- 
cisely because it was not." 

Secondly, the Deicide was due to Pilate's inability 
to appreciate spiritual values. Our Lord oflfered him 
the Kingdom of Truth, and was met by the half- 
despairing, half-cynical question, "What is truth?" It 
seemed to him perfectly intangible and unreal; his 
office, power and wealth were the actual values, and 
he dared not risk them. Tiberius was a jealous Em- 
peror, and was already frowning upon Sej anus, Pilate's 
patron, who was, in fact, executed the following year. 
Caesar was very proud of his excellent provincial gov- 
ernments, also, and knew that the Governor of the 



SAINT JOHN 223 



Jews had three times all but caused a rebellion among 
his subjects. Add to this that it was enough under the 
lex majestatis to be accused of treason, and decapita- 
tion would follow almost certainly. In comparison 
with these interests, truth was negligible. Is there not 
the making of a Pilate in most of us? Are we not 
prone to love things more than God? 

Both Pilate and the Jews personified the third evil 
which crucified our Lord, that is, pride. When the 
governor finally allowed himself to be forced to con- 
demn One Whom he had publicly declared to be en- 
tirely innocent, he thenceforth desired only to take 
revenge for the blow to his Roman pride, by heaping 
ridicule upon ''the King of the Jews.'' Accordingly, 
he brought the meek Sufferer forth, arrayed in robes 
of mock royalty, and crowned with a conqueror's 
wreath, but of thorns, and, it seems, seated Him upon 
a judgment seat in burlesque state (xix: 13, literally 
translated). The Jews, on their part, repudiated Him 
as their King, and, in order to show their utter scorn 
of Him, had His Cross placed in the center with a 
crucified robber on each Hand in parody of a king 
among his councillors. But, amid all this execration 
of Him, there was a little group which followed Him 
to the end and gave Him their deepest sympathy, their 
consuming love and their adoration. The central fig- 
ure of that little band was His Virgin Mother. Let us 
to-day thank God for her Compassion. 

&atuttiap in ^a0&ion mttti 

^samination of Conscience 
It is a result of our pride which was the main mur- 
derer of Incarnate God, that we naturally shrink from 



224 SAINT JOHN 



sincerely and honestly looking our consciences in the 
face. The correctives of this self-conceit are a deep- 
ening hatred of ''the sin which doth so easily beset us," 
and a stern resolution against duplicity with our own 
hearts (Jer. xvii: 9). Now it will enable us almost to 
love these two austere qualities, if we see self-deception 
at work in the souls of the Jews. Their own rabbinic 
law forbade them to try a criminal on a capital charge 
at night, because of the likelihood of injustice and 
foul play ; but they condemned Jesus in secrecy, before 
dawn, and then held a purely formal meeting in day- 
light to confirm the sentence. They bribed the wit- 
nesses against the Prisoner, but followed the legal 
form of examining them singly, whereupon their tes- 
timony unexpectedly conflicted (St. Mark xiv: 55-59). 
A day should have intervened between the sentence 
and the execution; this law they evaded by getting 
Pilate to condemn Him so that he would also set the 
time. But not for the world would they enter the Gen- 
tile governor's house, because it had not been cere- 
monially cleansed from leaven. It would seem in- 
credible that souls could so delude themselves, if it 
were not that we are so liable to put our own trust in 
forms of prayer and external respectability. 

In the priestly persecutors of Jesus, we see to what 
an awful depth souls may sink through self-deception. 
For it seems that they went from the two false trials 
of Jesus before the Sanhedrin to the offering of the 
morning sacrifice in the temple, and from this devo- 
tion back to Pilate's tribunal. The very voices which 
had but just been raised in the praise of Jehovah were 
now lifted in the savage cry, ''Crucify Him! Crucify 
Him !" 

We must, therefore, be firm in examining ourselves 



SAINT JOHN 225 



daily, especially as to our besetting temptation. For 
this is the principal hold which Satan has upon us. 
Let us loathe his touch. St. John could not bear to 
mention his name in this Gospel, except the one time 
when he must speak of his entrance into Judas' heart 
(xiii: 27). There is a great Ideal before us which we 
are to strive after through self-examination, and this 
is the Perfection of Jesus. Satan came feeling and 
searching through that Immaculate Humanity with his 
filthy fingers, seeking for one single weakness by which 
he could claim Christ as his own (xiv:3o). And we 
must be looking and longing for the time to come, 
when we, like our Lord, can say, *'The Prince of this 
world hath nothing in me.'' 

CJofe WiZt% Read St. John xix 

Palm g)untids 

W^z (humiliation of flPur King 

On the docket of the Governor's Court that first 
Good Friday, were the cases of three robbers who had 
assumed the cloak of patriotic insurrectionists in order 
to hide their crimes. Their leader, Barabbas, had also 
committed murder. All three were condemned to be 
crucified. Now, it occurred to Pilate that he could 
save Jesus by allowing the people to choose between 
His release and that of the desperate homicide, think- 
ing that they would really have no alternative but to 
prefer the innocent Man. But the people chose the 
criminal, with the result that the Son of God was cru- 
cified on the Cross vvhich had been prepared for the 
condemned convict, and between his accomplices. Even 
the Name and Title of our Lord seem to have been 
16 



226 SAINT JOHN 



involved in His utter abjection, for the name of the 
murderous robber was probably Jesus Barabbas, or 
"Saviour Son of the Father/' — an opportunity which 
would surely not be lost by bitter tongues. 

The Roman soldiers in the Praetorium were not slow 
to see the rare chance for savage sport with this '"King 
of the Jews." Accordingly, after they had scourged 
Him, they put upon Him an old purple gown, and a 
chaplet of thorns as a parody on the victor's wreath 
of Tiberius. Then they approached Him one by one, 
in a burlesque of the court customs, with the genuflec- 
tion of pretended reverence and a blow in His Face 
instead of the kiss of homage. Afterward, when He 
had been condemned to be crucified, they called to- 
gether the whole cohort to participate in this amusing 
torture (cp. St. Matt, xxvii: 27). 

When at last they permitted Him to take up His 
Cross and go forth to Calvary, what a contrast the pro- 
cession presented to His entrance into the City only the 
Sunday before! (xii: I2flf.) Then, it was the march 
of triumph up to His Capital, amid the hozannas of 
His people and over the palm and olive branches cast 
before Him by the children; now it was the Via 
Dolorosa, and the King moved heavily away from the 
City, with the placard of His accusation hanging from 
His Neck and laden with the gibbet on which He was 
to die. Surely He spared Himself no mortification 
which would make His example a more eflrective cure 
of our pride. In our time of temptation to sensitive- 
ness, or vanity, or self-assertion, let us remember Jesus 
bearing His Cross, lest the torture of His dear Heart 
for us should have been in vain. 



SAINT JOHN 227 



tEi)e 8©ecfenei3j5 of t|)e CrucifieU 

At Pilate's side stood a lictor, with his official axe, 
about the handle of which were bound rods for the 
chastisement of offenders of the higher classes. But 
the flagellation inflicted upon Jesus was that which 
was appointed for slaves convicted of heinous crimes. 
It was administered by two soldiers who stood, one 
on each side, behind and above Him, and laid on their 
blows alternately, with the terrible Rom.an scourge 
having seven thongs weighted with lead. Many per- 
sons succumbed under the scourging. Yet no outcry, 
complaint or protest came from the meek Lamb of 
God! 

Even the Roman Governor was awed by the bearing 
of Jesus. He had ordered the Flagellation on the very 
ground that the defendant was innocent. ^I have found 
no fault in this Man,' was his judgment, 'I will there- 
fore chastise Him and release Him/ The 'chastise- 
ment,' which would have been with the lictor's rods, 
had become the Scourging and still the Victim endured 
all with the same unearthly look of gentle resignation. 
Surely if the people saw Him thus, they would con- 
sent to His release. Therefore, Pilate brought Him 
forth, the King of Love, revealing so plainly in His 
Face His patient willingness to die for His people, and 
showed Him to them, saying, ''Behold ! The Man !" 

What is believed to have been the stone pillar at 
which the Flagellation was given has been found. If 
we entered the room where it stands, how immediately 
we would approach and kneel down, and how lovingly 
we would look upon that to which our Lord w^as bound 
when He suffered for us the healing stripes! But it 



228 SAINT JOHN 



will be far more acceptable to Him, if we will kneel 
down in our own homes, and promise Him that in 
honor of His patient love at His Scourging, we will 
strive always to bear injuries meekly. 



Uues&ap in l^olp QZlleefe 

Wc^z ©lacarti 

Pilate himself directed the inscribing of our Lord's 
Name and Title in three languages on the placard 
which took the place of the ordinary accusation; and 
perhaps the report that Jesus had ''made Himself the 
Son of God," united with the Divine Holiness of the 
Sufferer, had suggested to the governor the universal 
import of His Death {znj. 7 f.)- Certainly, he 'told it 
out among the heathen that the Lord is King/ For 
Hebrew was the language of the Jews, Latin the offi- 
cial tongue, and Greek the common speech of the Em- 
pire. Thus Jesus was proclaimed to be the Sovereign 
of Jev/ and Gentile alike. 

There was more significance than this, however, in 
our Lord's "title," for it symbolized the three main 
ways in which the world had been made ready for His 
coming. The language of the Old Testament sug- 
gested the religions instruction of the race; that of the 
Empire represented the social preparation through the 
spread of Rom^n civilization; and Greek was the me- 
dium through which God had provided the training of 
philosophy and an international tongue. 

But the writing on the Cross is Jesu's appeal to each 
one of us for bis whole being. He would have our 
mind; that He signifies by procuring that His Title of 
Kingship should be written in the intellectual tongue. 



SAINT JOHN ll"^ 



Me seeks our will, our imperial faculty, by asserting 
His royal claim over us in the Imperial language. He 
pleads for the heart of each one of the faithful in the 
speech of religion. And He seals His threefold claim 
by being crucified for love of us ; that all our self-love 
m.ay be crucified for love of Him. 

C^ri^t Curn)3 to t|)e ^entilejs 

Our dear Saviour was condemned on the Pavement 
l^etween the Sanctuary of the Temple and the Praeto- 
rium overlooking it. The Hebrew^ name for this stone 
platform, Gabbatha, in fact, means the ''Back of the 
House (of God)" {v. 13). As Christ stood facing 
Pilate and with His Back to the temple, His very posi- 
tion was symbolic of the tragic truth that He had 
turned from the ancient people of God to the Gentiles, 
and prophetic of the day for v/hich we hope when the 
Jews shall be one with us in His Mystical Body. 

Through their ''chief priests,'' the official spokesmen 
of the ancient theocracy, not the mob, nor even the 
Pharisees, Israel publicly renounced all claim to be the 
Kingdom of God. "We have no King but Caesar," 
they cried iy. 15). Moreover, they had begun by re- 
pudiating Jesus as the Christ, and now they ended by 
rejecting the Christ altogether; and with that unpar- 
alleled act of apostasy, they, representing their people, 
finally abdicated their ancient liberty. Henceforth by 
their ov/n confession, they were as much under the 
tyranny of Caesar as any Gentile tribe. Never since 
have they regained their lost sovereignty as a nation. 
Jesus Christ alone gives civil and religious liberty, 



230 SAINT JOHN 



through the conquest of self which He teaches from 
the pulpit of His Cross. But we share the inspired 
hope of St. Paul that, at the last, Israel also shall be 
gathered into the universal, free. State of Salvation 
(Rom. xi: 26). 

When, at the instigation of the Jews the soldiers 
thrust a spear into our Lord's side, St. John remem- 
bered the prophecy of Zechariah: ''They shall look 
on Him Whom they pierced'' {vv, 34, 37). And he 
tells us that the Day will break when this same Jesus 
will come ''with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, 
and they also which pierced Him" (Rev. i:7). Shall 
the Faithful of the Old Dispensation be among "the 
tribes of the earth" which "mourn," at that Second 
Advent? Or shall they see in the pierced Heart of 
their Messiah the open Door of His Fold into which 
their nation has at last entered? The answer will de- 
pend upon the prayers, the holy lives and the Christ- 
like charity of Christians. 



S|)e ©reparation of ti^e ©ajsisober 

To the young Apostle who was at our Lord's side 
through all the heartbreaking trial in the Praetorium, 
He appeared, m.ost of all, as the Lamb of God. So 
gentle and uncomplaining, so patient and loving was 
He, through it all, that St. John could think of noth- 
ing but the innocent victims to be slain that day. Thus 
he reminds us, in connection with the final sentencing 
of Christ, that "it was the preparation of the passover" 
{v. 14). Again, when the sour wine was lifted to the 
parched Lips of the Crucified, he noticed that the 



SAINT JOHN 231 



sponge had been put upon hyssop, one of the herbs 
always eaten at the paschal meal {v, 29) ; and in relat- 
ing the fact that the soldiers did not break our Lord's 
Legs, he applies to this the rule for preparing the lamb 
of the passover, ''a bone of him shall not be broken'' 
(z;. 36, cp. Ex. xii:46). Surely the Apostle of Love 
means to teach us that Jesus is our Lamb Whom we 
receive Whole in our Christian Paschal Supper. 

The Blood and Water which flowed from His riven 
Heart were a proof that even in Death He still pos- 
sessed mysterious Life. The Effusion was, also, a ful- 
fillment of the rabbinic tradition that, when Moses 
struck the rock, blood flowed from it, and then water. 
But, while it was a sign to his people of the Old 
Covenant, it w^as full of precious promise of cleansing 
and quickening Sacraments, to the Catholic Church. 

So eager was our Saviour to give Himself for man- 
kind, that there was in reality only one point in which 
His intention in the Passion differed from that of His 
enemies. Their desire was to take His Life, and He 
wanted nothing so much as to give it to them: they 
cried out, ''His Blood be on us and on our children,'' 
and He longed to pour it over their hearts and con- 
sciences. But they disagreed in this, that they meant 
to waste His Precious Blood or to invoke It as a curse 
upon their race, while He passionately desired to give 
It to them as a source of eternal blessings. And the 
sweetest reparation we can miake to Him for the in- 
gratitude of the Jews is always to receive Him for our 
everlasting benefit. 



232 SAINT JOHN 



(Boon jFtidap 

ilobe Eetcn0 jprom t|)e Croisjs 

As Royal as Jesus was all through His Life, He was 
never so perfectly the King of Divine Charity as when 
He reigned from His Throne on the Cross. Not only 
did He pray for His executioners as they nailed Him 
down, absolve the penitent robber and provide for His 
dear Mother and Beloved Disciple, but He gave up 
His whole Mind and Will for those six hours of su- 
preme agony to striving for the conversion of the Jews. 
Four times they had shouted, as with one voice, for 
His destruction: ''Not this Man, but Barabbas"; 
"Crucify Him ! Crucify Him !" ; "He ought to die'' ; 
"Away with Him, Away with Him, Crucify Him!" 
(xviii : 40; vz\. 6, 7, 15). And |iow for the fourth time 
He cried out seeking their salvation (cp. vii. 28, 37; 
xii : 44; St. Matt, xxvii : 50). After they had brought 
Him to the crudest and vilest of deaths, His Divine 
revenge upon them was; to say His last prayer on the 
Cross "with a loud voice," in order to prove that He 
was voluntarily yielding up His Spirit into His Father's 
Hands, in the hope that they might even then accept 
Him as the Son of God (cp. St. Mark xv: 39). 

The four soldiers who were guarding Him had 
divided His outer clothing among them and were dic- 
ing for His seamless robe, treating Him as being al- 
ready dead. With them, St. John contrasts the four 
wom^en who stood in a semicircle around the dear 
pierced Feet, protecting Him; to them He was the 
King of Eternal Life {vv, 23 flf.). 

The three Words from the Cross recorded in the 
Fourth Gospel are wonderfully characteristic of Sov- 
ereign Love. By one gentle decree. He indicated for 



SAINT JOHN 233 



all time that the Christian home should be established 
and built up around His Cross {vv, 26 f.). After many 
hours spent in planning for the salvation of our whole 
race, He spoke again, saying '1 thirst," in order to 
fulfill a small provision of His rule of life in the Scrip- 
tures (v. 28). For this King is perfect both in plans 
of world-wide scope, and in the tiniest details. But 
this v/as the last act of obedience required from Him. 
Nov;^ He could say, ''It is finished'' ; His redemptive 
Work, the fulfillment of all God's promises under the 
Old Covenant, and His Own development as our High 
Priest had been perfectly consummated (cp. Heb. v: 
8ff.). Therefore rightfully He reigns from the Cross 
over the Realm of Love, — this Monarch with His 
Crown of Thorns and the Spike for a sceptre ! This 
day He claims our hearts afresh. He shall be the 
Master of our Destiny. l 

Con^ecratinix t^e (Klebentl) C^our 

St. Joseph of Arimathaea, by his example, teaches us 
the great lesson that it is never too late to mend a bad 
matter. He had kept his discipleship secret for fear of 
the Jews throughout Christ's life, and it would have 
been natural for him now that the Lord was dead, to 
continue suppressing his allegiance. If he touched the 
dead Body he would be unclean for the greatest feast 
of his religion ; his failure to take part in the festival 
services w^ould precipitate the dishonor and scorn which 
v/ould be heaped upon himx by all his old friends. St. 
Mark reveals to us that only after a severe struggle 
with him.self he, ''having dared, went in unto Pilate 
and craved the Body of Jesus'' (xv: 43, literally trans- 
lated). 



234 SAINT JOHN 



If we follow him, we will never say that things have 
gone so far that we can do nothing to remedy them. 
St. Joseph might well have considered that he could 
accomplish nothing in the few hours of Good Friday 
which remained before the Festival would begin. But 
see what he was able to do! First of all, he inspired 
the courage of St. Nicodemus, who followed him with 
an hundredweight of spices for the sacred Body. But 
far more important than this, he with his companion 
provided one of the strongest proofs of the Resurrec- 
tion, by binding our Lord's Limbs with the strips of 
linen and weighting them with the myrrh and aloes, 
until it was obviously impossible for Him to move 
except in a supernatural way. Let their experience 
teach us to make the most of a spiritual crisis, or even 
of a disaster. 

But when we do turn away from our failure, or sin, 
to our Lord, we must bring our best. St. Joseph gave 
his new tomb, which had been hewn out of the solid 
rock, for his own body, and was enclosed in his gar- 
den. Let us provide Jesus a heart which has been 
cleansed from our fault by penitence, and beautified by 
those rare exotics, the Christian virtues. 

JFor SrtDO 2KIIi0eli)3* Read St. John xx 

(Ka0ter 2Dap 

JLobe iReceibinc t|)e (Dagtrr (Slijrtjst 

So preeminent is the Divine Mystery commemorated 
in this Queen Feast, that all Three Persons of the 
Godhead are revealed as participating in it. The 
Father is often said to have raised our Lord from the 
dead (cp. Acts iii:i5). The Incarnate Son declared 
that, if the Jews destroyed the Temple of His Body, in 



SAINT JOHN 235 



three days He would raise it up (St. John ii: 19 ff.)- 
The Holy Spirit, St. Paul indicates, ''raised up Jesus 
from the dead," in the same way that He shall also 
quicken our mortal bodies at our resurrection (Rom. 
viii : 1 1 ) . All the Infinite Love of the Blessed Trinity 
w^as poured out upon the Risen Christ, and upon us 
through Him. 

That Divine Charity planned, moreover, to disclose 
the glorious truth to Jesus' friends, in the way each 
could best receive it. The Beloved Disciple needed 
only to see the open sepulchre, the empty cerements, 
and the napkin neatly folded by the familiar Hands 
{w, 6ff.). St. Mary Magdalen knew her Lord when 
He spoke to her with the ''Personal Voice of love" 
{w, 14-16). To the ten Apostles, He showed the 
sacred wounds in Hands and Feet and Side, and they 
believed {v. 20). But St. Thomas demanded the op- 
portunity of thrusting his finger into the Print of the 
nails, and, with the old meekness and charity, Jesus 
submitted to his test (27 f.). Is it not a pure joy to 
see "these slowly widening victories of faith'' in the 
Easter Christ? 

With the development of love and faith, knowledge 
also grew. St. John seems to have gained from his 
first view of the empty tomb only a belief that some- 
how the Lord was again alive. He revealed Himself 
openly to the blessed Magdalen, but she, not yet know- 
ing Him "as the Son of God with power," addressed 
Him still by the old, inferior, title "Master." The 
Apostolic Band recognized Him as "the Lord" when 
they had seen the Marks of His Passion. Finally, St 
Thomas, reaping the advantage of the revelations to 
the others, voiced the confession of them all when he 
cried, "My Lord and my God." Be his faith ours, and 



236 SAINT JOHN 



with it, that extraordinary blessing of our Lord which 
He promised to those who have not seen and yet be- 
lieve. 1 

(Ka0tet Slponbap 

Wc^z I0erj3onal Hobe oC Segus for ©acl) ^oul 

Among the few details which St. John thought im- 
portant enough to mention for the fourth time in his 
Gospel was the early visit of the holy women to the 
sepulchre. The blessed Magdalen arrived there well 
before dawn, having outsped the others. But there 
was One Who had risen even earlier than she and Who 
came to meet her, bringing her the richest of blessings 
{yv, I ff., 11-17). We could hardly have more im- 
pressive teaching that our Lord loves to have us seek 
Him, in prayer and at Holy Communion, before the 
distractions of the day begin, and while the dew of 
grace is at its freshest on our hearts. 

It was the personal love for Him of the holy peni- 
tent to which He thus immediately responded. So 
close and so dear to her was He, that she loved even 
His dead Body as 'her Lord' ; and her devotion to 
Him made her feel strong enough to ''take Him away'' 
on her weak shoulders. He seems, however, to have 
waited until she had an even deeper sense of her per- 
sonal loss. When she reported to the Apostles, "They 
have taken away the Lord out of the Sepulchre, and we 
know not where they have laid Him," He did not come 
to her ; but no sooner had she said to the angels, "They 
have taken away my Lord, and / know not where they 
have laid Him," than He gave her the unspeakable joy 
of His Presence. 

But why, then, did He direct her not to hold to His 
Feet? iv. 17 A. V. Marg.) She was making the very 



SAINT JOHN 237 



natural mistake of trying to cling to what she supposed 
v/as the old relationship restored. Christ, she assumed, 
had become like St. Lazarus, after he was brought back 
from the dead. But He gently instructed her that He 
would, through His Resurrection and Ascension, grant 
to His Own a much more real and precious spiritual 
relationship. Therefore, now, for the first time. He 
spoke of the Church as His ''brethren." In His God- 
head He dwells in each one of us continually, and with 
His Risen Manhood He is in our hearts for a few 
priceless moments after each Communion. Shall we 
not hold fast to the Feet of this Divine Brother, as long 
as we may and with our deepest personal love for 
Him? ^ 

Carter ^ue0&ap 

Complete Dfbotion to X\)Z iRigen €l)ri)3t 

It will help us to devote our whole being to Christ, 
if we make a simple analysis of love, guided by the 
Scriptures. There is, first, natural love, called by the 
Greeks Eros, which springs entirely from the emo- 
tions. It is used in the Bible only in the Old Testa- 
ment, and there but tw^ice in an honorable sense ; once 
of the fondness of Ahasuerus for his Queen, and again 
in the Divine command to love Holy Wisdom (Esther 
ii:i7; Prov. iv:6). The Holy Scriptures, therefore, 
indicate that our natural aflfections are not evil, but are 
to be devoted to Christ, the Wisdom of God, and to our 
family and friends in Him. St. Ignatius, on his way 
to martyrdom, wrote: ''My love (^eros) is crucified." 
His passions were consecrated, with Jesus, on the 
Cross. 

Secondly, there is what we may call relational or 
devotional love (philia), which is devotion to Christ 



238 SAINT JOHN 



as our Friend, Brother, and Saviour. This proceeds 
from the will and the emotions. It is a beautiful and 
holy affection, having a spiritual counterpart in the 
Love between the Father and the Son in the Blessed 
Trinity (v:2o). We should often stimAilate it, and 
strive to increase it, by the use of a cross or a crucifix 
in our devotions, by thinking of Jesus' Personal love 
for us, and by frequenting the Blessed Sacrament. 

The third kind of love {ctgape), however, is the 
highest of all; for this Dimne Charity constitutes the 
very Nature of God. It is elicited from the Christian 
will, and is for the Blessed Trinity and for the souls 
of our fellow-men. It is of so unstrained a quality 
that it extends to the whole world, not excluding our 
enemies, and strives for the salvation of all. It was the 
bond which united Jesus to His Beloved Disciple; and 
nothing makes Him so joyful as to see this noblest 
devotion developed in our souls, because it makes us 
most like Himself. 1 

atUttinegitiap in (Ba&ttt Mttii 

Dfecerninc ti^e Wimn €})ri}5t 

Divine Charity is the calmest, most disinterested and 
most powerful of all kinds of love. Why was it that 
our Lord gave it to St. John, His youngest Apostle, in 
addition to the ''natural" and "relational" affection 
which He bestowed impartially upon all the Band ? It 
was because St. John was receptive of the highest love. 
From the first he discerned, however dimly, the perfect 
Charity of his Master's Personality and, although fee- 
bly* responded to it. He was always less emotional 
and more penetrating than the others. 

Accordingly, we find him forever being surpassed 
in action, and excelling in keenness of vision. Thus, 



SAINT JOHN 239 



he seems to have been the first to discern the Messiah 
in Jesus; but St. Andrew, representing rather ''rela- 
tional/' or ''devotional/' love, outstripped him in bring- 
ing his brother to Christ. At the sepulchre, again, it 
was fervent, impulsive Peter who first entered, but it 
was the Apostle of Love who, seeing the cerements, 
discerned the Risen Christ. Finally, when their Mas- 
ter appeared at the lakeside, St. John discerned Him 
in the strange Form, but St. Peter sprang overboard 
and swam to Him. 

The lesson for us is that we ought not permit our 
devotion to Jesus to stop short of His Godhead. Not 
content with natural love for His dear Humanity, nor 
even with fervent devotion to His Sacred Heart and 
Flis Sacramental Presence, we must, like St. John, 
often discern His Person and respond to His highest, 
Divine, Love. For then will He lead us to know and 
love the Father and the Holy Spirit, as never before, 
and we shall be His beloved disciples. 



CSursfdap m (EasfUt azatrfe 

Wc^z 'Blej3j3eli Wxt^m anli X%z Keeurrcctton 

In all the world there w^as but one person who ex- 
pected the Resurrection of Christ, and that one was 
His Mother. Although there were Old Testament 
prophecies and the constant teaching of Jesus to in- 
struct His disciples, none of the others heard this 
double witness of God {v, 9; St. Luke xxiv: 17-27). 
But the dear pondering heart of the Blessed Virgin had 
become certain that He would rise from the dead 
Otherwise, though she was the most heroic of the mar- 
tyrs, she could not have *'stood" before the Ooss. 



240 SAINT JOHN 



Her faith explains, in part, the fact that St. John 
was the first of the Apostles to believe in the Resurrec- 
tion. Even while he ''knew not the Scriptures,'' and 
had before him only the same evidence that occasioned 
simply wonder in St. Peter, he was convinced. Surely 
the Blessed Mother had been comforting him with her 
own assurance that Jesus would indeed rise again. 

Because she believed so perfectly, moreover, she was 
left to wait for a visit from her Risen Son, until He 
had shepherded the souls which stood in mortal need 
of Him (cp. St. Luke xv:4, 7)- Even when news of 
His Resurrection was brought to the very door, it 
seems not to have been for her {v, 2) \ there was no 
tragedy in her heart as there was in that of the Mag- 
dalen, or that of poor desolate Peter. Do we think 
that we are derelicts when God and His servants pass 
us by? Ought we not rather to consider that He is 
trusting us, as He confided in His Mother, to be true 
to Him, without His special favors? 



iFtf&a? m (£a0tet dMeeft 

WcfZ ^earja of 3fej3U0 

To-day let us, from the midst of our Easter joys and 
blessings, look back and recollect what it cost our Lord 
to give us the Paschal Feast. It will be convenient for 
us to gather our thoughts about the three occasions, 
when, we are told, He wept. The first time was at the 
grave of St. Lazarus, when, as the Greek word means 
literally. He ''shed tears'' in sorrow for His dead friend 
f xi : 35). In His grief, and His eager desire to revive 
His disciple, we see a picture of His love for each one 
of us, and His far greater longing to burst the bonds 



SAINT JOHN 241 



of death and raise men to a share in His own Resur* 
rection. 

On Palm Sunday, again, He wept as He came into 
view of the beautiful City, and foresaw its utter de- 
struction (St. Luke xix:4i). The verb here means 
that He burst into a flood of tears and wept aloud, so 
great was His sorrow over the passing of His ancient 
Church. But how much greater was His care for His 
own Mystical Body, which He knew would be stricken 
as if in death by His Crucifixion, and must be raised to 
glorious new life by His Resurrection. 

We are prepared, therefore, for His grapple with 
our enemy, death, in Gethsemane. There He must do 
battle, by prayer and suffering, for each one of us 
individually, and for the very life of His Church. 
Therefore, He ''offered up prayers and supplications 
with strong crying and tears," St. Paul reveals to us, 
"unto Him that was able to save Him out from death, 
and was heard'' (Heb. v: 7 R. V.). His pleading was 
not to escape the Passion, for only through the grave 
could He pass to His Resurrection. But He besought 
His Father, with an agony of weeping, that He might 
issue triumphantly ''out from death/' for our sake. 
And He was heard. His Human Nature was empow- 
ered to conguer the great foe of mankind, and He 
came forth to us on Easter Day with the gift of an 
endless life. x 

&atutliap in CaiStct MIeefe 

Wc}Z iSe^lBirt]^ of jfaitl), i^ope anH Hobe 

It is impossible to exaggerate the preeminent value, 
to the Apostles, of Jesus' Resurrection. If we take 
only St. Paul, St. Peter and St. John, we shall find that 



to 



17 



242 SAINT JOHN 



they attributed to the Risen Christ the renascence of 
the essential Theological Virtues. From the hour the 
Radiance of Easter shone down upon him on the 
Damascus Road, the Apostle of the Gentiles considered 
that the Christian Religion was nothing without that 
glorious Presence. If Christ was not risen, jaiih was 
foolish; he was a false witness deceiving thousands; 
his suflferings, such as his battle with wild beasts at 
Ephesus, were in vain, for he was still in his sins (i 
Cor. XV : 15, 17, 32). 

St. Peter tells us, plainly, how his dead hope sprang 
to life again when our Saviour came to him on the first 
Easter Day. ''God/' he wrote long afterward, "hath 
begotten us again unto a living hope by the Resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ from the dead'' (i St. Pet. irj 
R. v.). He could never forget that afternoon when he 
had been sitting, too utterly disconsolate even to weep, 
and then in an instant all was changed, when he saw 
the familiar Form of His beloved Master, and once 
more heard His Voice (St. Luke xxiv : 34). 

Sixty-five years had passed, after the Resurrection, 
before the Apostle of Love recorded what it meant to 
him, but the impression was not a whit the less vivid 
from the passage of time. 'That V/hich we have heard. 
Which w^e have seen with our eyes, Which we have 
looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word 
of Life,' he wrote to his "little children," "That declare 
we unto you, that ye may have fellowship with the 
Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ" (i St. John 
i : I fif. : St. Luke xxiv: 39 f.)- Thus love, the spiritual 
life and union with God through Christ, came forth 
from the grave with Him. Are we using His precious 
Easter gifts. Faith, Hope and Love? Are we exercis- 
ing these virtues, and praying for their increase, so 



SAINT JOHN 243 



that through them we may know and serve our RiseH 
Lord better ? . 

9 

W^t ipitsjt feunda? Mitt (!Ea0tet 

Our Saviour rose to change the whole face of the 
earth; and the history of the centuries which hav€ 
followed the first Easter proves that His Life has been 
the one preeminently redeeming force in the history of 
mankind. If a traveler had set out in 68 a.d. to find 
the greatest thing in the world, the Greek would have 
said to him, ''You must see Athens" ; the Roman, "You 
must visit the Mistress of the World/' and the Jew, 
'The Temple is certainly what you seek." But theleln- 
ple, and old Athens, and the proud Rome of the Oe- 
sars, lie in ruins, while the power of the Resurrection 
has transformed the world. Music, painting, liberty, 
and charity toward the poor and weak are among the 
gifts of civilization which have received their inspira- 
tion from the faith of Christ Risen. 

By His Victory, God, not Satan, has been shown to 
be the master of the world. Even the recent War has 
been overruled for our good ; the spirit of self-sacrifice 
has revived ; the need of the Christian Faith has been 
brought home to many hearts; and the severed parts 
of the Body of Christ have been drawn nearer to re- 
union. Moreover, in spite of countless foes without 
and within, the Church is steadily gaining ground. The 
Bishop of London has said that, during twenty-one 
years of ministry in his See City, which is perhaps as 
difficult a field as any, he has seen our Lord gain so 
many souls that his faith is twenty-one times as strong 
as at the beginning. 



244 SAINT JOHN 



When our Master burst the bonds of death, He set 
free an inexhaustible source of power for each one of 
us. For, through the Sacraments, we share in the 
courage and vigor of 

" One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 
triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake." 



a^onliap after tje jFitot S)untiap mxtt Cagtet 

(Kajster 3fop 

Because there was no purer or greater natural hap- 
piness, our Lord compared the joy of the Church over 
His Resurrection to that of a mother with her first-born 
babe. The Body of the Faithful must suffer the tra- 
vail of witnessing His Passion first, and then it would 
have the unspeakable happiness of bringing Him forth 
at Easter. Thus dear Jesus claims to bear to us all 
those relationships which give us the greatest happi- 
ness. He is our Father in Holy Communion, and at all 
times He is our best Friend, our Brother, our Spouse, 
and our First-born (cp. xiii: 33 ; xv: 15 ; xx: 17; xiv: 
2^^ ; xvi : 2 1 ) . 

This joy of Easter can never be taken away from 
us ; even though we should be deprived of every tem- 
poral blessing, we would still have the supreme happi- 
ness of possessing Jesus and all things in Him. A vast 
number of men and women in all ages of the Church 
have deliberately renounced marriage, property, and 
personal liberty, saying, ''I am nothing, I have nothing, 
and I desire nothing save only the love of Jesus.'' Yet 



SAINT JOHN 245 



no one of them, who was faithful to his vocation, has 
ever been less than supremely happy. 

Our Saviour expresses the two great delights of our 
relation to Him as being that we see Him, and that He 
sees us (xiv: 19; xvi:22). How unspeakably great 
must have been the rapture of a visit with the Risen 
Christ ! And yet He looks upon each of us now with 
that same boundless love, and with the same joyful 
Smile which comforted Peter when he sees us become 
more penitent and devoted to Him (St. Luke xv: 10). 
If we would know the fulness of pleasure, we need 
only live in His Presence. As the sun-dial records none 
but sunny hours, so ought we reckon that we truly live 
only during the time we spend in the light of His 
Countenance. 1 

^uegJUap after tfte jFtt0t &untiag iafut (Cagttr 

Wc}Z 3fop of X\)z f^z\xs Viiz 

The very first act of Christ upon His return to the* 
Church was to bestow upon her the new life whicb 
He had purchased with His Own Blood on the Cross,- 
and had brought to her in His Risen Humanity. AncS 
the way in w^hich He gave this, which is the priceless^ 
heritage of Christendom, indicates that He was the 
new ''Beginning of the creation of God" (Rev. iii : 14). 
For as, at the early dawn of existence, ''the Lord God 
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life/' so now in the morn- 
ing of the new creation that original endowment of 
eternal life, lost by the Fall, is restored, and again it 
is conveyed by the Sacrament of God's Breath. 
Through our Risen Lord there is offered to mankind 
a second genesis, a new world and the place of children 
in the very household of God (Eph. ii: 19). 



246 SAINT JOHN 



But, inevitably, the first communication to souls of 
the new life thus committed to the Church would be to 
effect their reconciliation and union with God. Ac- 
cordingly, the authority to forgive was explicitly con- 
ferred upon the Body of the Faithful, with full power 
to exercise Christ's Own Ministry of Reconciliation. 
'"As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you'' were 
the terms of the Church's commission ; and they mean 
that she is really Jesus Christ seeking lost sinners in 
the world, to endow their dead souls with His gift of 
life. ''I am the Light of the World," He said once, 
and again to His Church, ''Ye are the Light of the 
World" (viii: 12; St. Matt, v: 14). 

Not only has she her Lord's own authority to cleanse 
souls by Holy Baptism ; she possesses also a remedy 
for the even greater iniquity which Christians commit 
against the Presence of Jesus within them, and against 
the life which He has imparted to their souls. Through 
her priest she speaks the word of Absolution to each 
contrite sinner, upon the easy condition that he tell her 
his faults privately, and resolve to amend. On the 
very promise of Christ, the burden of his guilt is in- 
stantly done away, loosed in Heaven as the gracious 
pardon of his Lord is pronounced on earth (St. Matt, 
xviii: 18). How wonderfully it proves the far-seeing 
love and care of our Saviour, that His first thought on 
His Resurrection Day was to provide a sacrament to 
cleanse away the stain of treason from us. His friends 
and brethren ! 1 

dZllelinesftiap after t^e Jfitst &un&ap after (Caster 

Congsecration bp t|)e iSteen Ci^rwt 

The gift of new life imparted by our Saviour on 
Easter Day is to consecrate us for Him, more and 



SAINT JOHN 247 



more, as it fills us. It is impossible for us to remain 
stationary in holiness ; we must advance, or we will 
deteriorate. St. Bernard applies to this the saying of 
Job that 'Man never continueth in one stay' (xiv: 2). 
But there is the simplest, sweetest and most perfect of 
all ways for us to increase in perfection, and that is 
through love of Jesus Risen. Suppose we take, for 
example, the fault of ''temper,'' which is the besetting 
sin of so many souls. The cure suggested by Holy 
Scripture is, "Kiss the Son" (Ps. ii: 12). At each 
CommAmion we can consecrate our lips and tongue to 
kind and gentle speech, and our hearts to loving 
thoughts. 

Jesus appeared to Blessed Magdalen in the form of 
a gardener. Shall we not let Him cultivate in our souls 
the flowers of love? 

" In silence and alone He rose in power, 
Even the dearest of His Own, knew not the hour. 
Even the Mother of His love might not stand by, 
Even the Angel Hosts above watched silently. 

** In silence and alone Thy footsteps trod 
Earth's garden fair, which was Thine Own, O Son of God 
Come as the morning mists unroll with roseate hue, 
And in the garden of my soul make all things new." 

The Resurrection life which we receive from our 
Saviour is the sole beauty and eternal ornament of 
our spirit and body. Now it lies hidden within us, 
except as it manifests itself in a life consecrated to 
Him and to our brethren ; but at His coming, it shall 
be revealed (Rom. viii: 18). We must let Him impart 
it to us "more abundantV' through our spiritual life 
and the sacraments. 



245 SAINT JOHN 



tltl|ttt0liap at tet tSe iFir0t Sanliap after (t^^Xxt 

dt ^|)omai5 duffereH to Douiit t|)e Beisurrection 

There are several possible reasons for doubt about 
the Faith. It may be due to the will being weak and 
the mind clouded by sin. A man once said to Pascal, 
"O, if I only believed what you believe, I would be a 
better man/' ''Begin by being a better man, and you 
will soon believe what I believe," the philosopher an- 
swered. St. Thomas, however, was too good a soul 
to conceive doubt in this way. Then, it may arise from 
an intellectual difficulty. But the doubting Apostle had 
seen Christ raise Lazarus from death, and he must 
have supposed that He could come forth from His Own 
tomb. A third cause of doubt is the fact that one 
cares so much ; and this was the difficulty with St. 
Thomas. The Resurrection meant so much to him, 
that he was afraid it could not be so. Add to this that 
he was trying to puzzle out by himself the mystery of 
Christ's Death, and that he demanded ocular proof of 
the Resurrection, and we have the three most prolific 
sources of skepticism. 

His experience reveals to us that our Risen Lord 
was as willing as ever to teach a soul in the way it 
could best receive the truth. The Cross stood plain 
before St. Thomas. How red and gaping were the 
Wounds ! But through the love of our Lord, the very 
Marks of His Crucifixion, which had been the cause 
of the Apostle's despair, became the means of bringing 
him to the fulness of faith. ''Reach hither thy finger, 
and behold My Hands," He said to the Apostle, "and 
reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My Side and 
be not faithless but believing." 

St. Thomas was peculiarly well fitted to bear the 



SAINT JOHN 249 



most convincing witness to the Resurrection. St. Peter 
was too impulsive in leaping to a conclusion, and the 
Apostle of Love was too devoted to our Lord for 
skepticism. But St. Thomas would believe only on 
sight. The evidence, however, convinced him so com- 
pletely that he made an act of faith, which expresses 
the loftiest view of our Lord given in the Gospels. 
Even so, our failures and sins, will, if we permit, be 
overruled by the grace of Christ to our souFs welfare 
and to His glory. l 

JFrida]? at tct t&e ifitsst feuntiap after (Easur 

Spiritual Capital for Jejsus Ktsfen 

There is truth in the suggestion that each one of the 
Evangelists emphasizes a particular view of the Resur- 
rection. St. Mark devotes himself to presenting the 
fact itself ; St. Matthew shows the Majesty and Glory 
of the Risen Christ; St. Luke brings out the spiritual 
necessity of His Rising ; and St. John teaches that the 
Resurrection was a touchstone of character. The truth 
of this last view is remarkably illustrated by the way 
in which St. Thomas is revealed in the light of Easter. 
We know him better from two brief episodes in rela- 
tion to this Mystery, than we could from the biography 
of his whole previous life. 

He had one very great virtue, sincerity. When he 
did not know the way which his Master was pointing 
out to him, he said so, frankly (xiv:S). When he 
thought it certain that Jesus was going to suffer Death, 
he had no thought but to die with Him (xi : i6). *'He 
will die for the love he has, but he will not affect the 
faith w^hich he has not.'' 

The one especially good quality in our character, 
like this virtue of sincerity in St. Thomas, is our Lord's 



250 SAINT JOHN 



capital invested in us. It is the ''talent" which He has 
loaned to us, expecting to receive it back with ""usury/' 
St. Thomas, being honest, accepted valid proof when 
it was offered him, and, consequently, was led to faith 
in three important truths, as his great confession 
shows: He now believed in the Resurrection, and in 
the Deity of Christ, and that he participated in both 
through possessing the Risen Jesus. Therefore he 
cried, ''My Lord and my God." Let us strive to make 
as great a gain this Eastertide through the principal 
gift which Christ has entrusted to us. 



&attttt!ag %Vizi X\z JFirst &un&ag ^iitt Carter 

Wot IRiisen €|)rii3t \\)t Sn^toer to ^oUcrn (Krrorja 

One of the commonest attacks upon our Faith is the 
denial of our Lord's Bodily Resurrection. There are 
many proofs of this fundamental Christian truth, how- 
ever, which our assailants have never been able to an- 
swer even to the satisfaction of one another: the 
empty Tomb, the apparently honest testimony of the 
eye witnesses, the conversion of St. Paul, and the 
existence of the Catholic Church, are all facts which 
remain inexplicable, unless Jesus rose. But let us take 
only the one little fact that the ancient day of worship, 
the Sabbath, was, at the very beginning of Christian- 
ity, changed to Sunday. If our Lord had simply con- 
summated a Life of unparalleled holiness and love by 
a supreme act of Self-sacrifice on the Cross, the Apos- 
tolic Church might have adopted Friday as her ''Lord's 
Day,'' but she would never have appointed Sunday. 
The only natural explanation of her choice is that 
Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. 



SAINT JOHN 251 



It is not too much to say, that upon the truth of the 
Easter Gospel depend the dignity and happiness of our 
human life. For the Resurrection of Jesus was the 
last and greatest of the ''signs" by which He proved 
Himself to be the Christ, the Object of the Old Testa- 
m.ent types and prophecies, and the Son of God, the 
Fulfiller of the hope of all mankind. Only through 
believing in Him can we have life that is worthy of 
the name (z^. 3of.). 

It is not to be wondered at, however, that modern 
paganism resents the teaching of the Resurrection. 
For by bursting the bonds w^hich bound Flis Body in 
death, He showed that He Vv^as not merely ''Flesh'' but 
truly the Son of God, and this conflicts with all sys- 
tems of materialism. On the other hand, He proved 
that His Risen Body was real and was the immortal 
counterpart of His Soul whereby He rebukes modern 
"Spiritism,'' with its false emphasis on the soul and its 
scorn of the flesh. Then, let us hold as a sacred trust 
for our brethren outside the Fold the saving truth of 
the Easter Christ. 



flntil ^liscenrion Dap* Read St. John xxi 

W^t S)eccinlr ^untiap %iXtt (KagiUr 

©eace ^Ti^roucl) t|)e Riisen HorH 

Peace, like Truth, 'flourished out of the earth' at 
Easter. Almost the last word Jesus spoke before leav- 
ing the Upper Room on the night before His Passion 
was "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto 
you," and His greeting to the Apostles, upon His 
return after the Resurrection, was "Peace be unto 
vou." After He had shown them His Hands and Side 



252 SAINT JOHN 



and they knew that it was indeed their Lord, Whom 
they had last seen hanging upon the Cross, He re- 
peated the solemn, sweet benediction, 'Teace be unto 
you" (xiv:27; xx:i9, 21). He had brought them 
peace upon peace, the reward of His Suffering and the 
gift of His Resurrection. 

The peace of Easter could come only through the 
strife of Calvary. Jesus Himself said, ''Ought not the 
Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into 
His glory T meaning that only by the Way of the Cross 
could He bring to His Own the blessings of His glo- 
rious Risen Life. It was the failure of the Apostles 
to understand this essential relation between Good 
Friday and Easter which led to their being unpre- 
pared for the return of their Crucified Saviour. Since 
they had not been able to accept His Death, they had 
also missed His Resurrection, for it was bound up with 
His Passion as one transaction of Divine Love. For 
Him and for us, there must be first the battle with 
mortal foes, and then eternal peace. 

In the calm trustfulness of the Apostles, after they 
returned to Galilee to keep the tryst with Christ, we 
see how effectual the new peace had already become 
in their lives. They went back to their ordinary work, 
and waited quietly for a sign from their Lord to deter- 
mine their future course {v. 3). Amid all the excite- 
ment of the first Eastertide, and their wonderful gifts 
of the new life, and mission, and power to reconcile 
and absolve, there was in their hearts the deep repose 
of supernatural peace. They prove to us that we can. 
have the very peace of Jesus in the midst of confusion 
and uncertainty as to the future. 



SAINT JOHN 253 



9^on0as ;actet tj^e Second gDun&a? ^ixxt Castet 

d)rii5t anU VcjZ C|)urc|) on (Kart|) 

As our Lord stood on the shore of the Lake, His 
Figure dimly discernible in the half-light of the dawn, 
and altered by a certain strange Majesty, He was hard- 
ly nearer to the Apostles in the boat, than He is to us 
to-day. Where two or three of us are gathered to- 
gether, there is He in the midst; He comes to our 
altars in the Blessed Sacrament whenever we desire, 
and, in His Godhead, dwells in each Christian heart. 
But, while He comes so very close to us, it requires 
loving sympathy to perceive Him. Thus, only ''the 
disciple whom Jesus loved" recognized Him. "He was 
able to read in a moment by a certain sympathy with 
Christ the meaning'' of the miraculous draught (^.7). 
Yet, he ascribes this gift of insight, not to himself, but 
to his Master. His title is not a boast, here or else- 
where, but a thanksgiving for the boundless love which 
Jesus had bestowed upon him in giving him the power 
of discerning His Presence. Everyone of us is the 
object of that same Divine Charity, and may for the 
asking obtain from our Lord an increased gift of dis- 
cerning Him within ourselves or under Sacramental 
veils. 

He abides with His Church on earth and with each 
soul of His people, in order to provide for our salva- 
tion, even in small details. ''Children,'' He called to 
the Apostles on the Lake, "have ye aught to eat"? 
It was the same loving care which had made Him direct 
that food should be given to the little daughter of 
Jairus, and that St. Lazarus should be loosed from 
the uncomfortable bands in which his body had been 
swathed (St. Luke viii : 55 ; St. John xi : 44). 



254 SAINT JOHN 



Nor will He long deny us the supreme happiness of 
seeing His Face. Already the day is breaking. Surely 
for us the midnight of Judas' treason is past forever ; 
we are living in the dawn of Peter's penitence, and the 
morning is brightening around us as we advance little 
by little in righteousness, toward our Saviour on the 
Eternal Shore. . 

Uuestiap after tSe fe^ccond ^untiap mxti (Casuc 

JFIeeins to Ql|?rtj3t in Contrition 

It is one of the favorite devices of the devil to lead 
us into sin, first, and then persuade us that since we 
have fallen we might as well continue indulging our- 
selves, or at least postpone seeking forgiveness, until 
our next confession or communion. In this way he 
deludes souls into multiplying the first fault so that 
God is much more dishonored, than if they had at 
once sought pardon for the broken resolution, or com- 
mandment. We may gain from the experience of St. 
Peter some valuable instruction in rejecting this evil 
counsel of the Tempter. When he first realized his 
guilt in the Eyes of his all-holy Master, he would 
have driven Jesus away from him, so great was his 
shame and suflFering in the Divine Presence (St. Luke 
v:8). We also feel this disposition to escape from 
our Saviour when we have fallen into pride or anger 
or whatever our besetting sin may be. 

He had made a great gain in true penitence, how- 
ever, when we obtain a second view of his heart (vi: 
68). Christ had oflFered Himself to His Disciples as 
the very Bread of Heaven and many had deserted Him, 
in consequence. But although He made a great de- 
mand on the faith of the Apostles, also, St. Peter had 



SAINT JOHN 255 



learned now that above all things he must cleave to his 
Master. ''Lord/' he declared, ''to whom shall we go? 
Thou hast the words of eternal life.'' And, no matter 
how bad our fall should be, we must in the first mo- 
ment afterward, resolve that we will hold fast to Jesus. 
Dear St. Peter manifested the consummation of his 
training, there at the Lake, when he saw his Risen 
Master on the shore and swam to Him. He fully 
realized his need of forgiveness for his three denials, 
but his first thought was to reach the Feet of his Lord 
with all speed. Let us, after his example, rise up im- 
mediately from our fall, not even waiting for our next 
devotions, flee at once to Jesus, and beg His ready for- 
giveness. ^ 

rafter (£a0tet 

^\}Z 3Iop of l^olp Communion 

It is the Risen Christ Whom we receive in the 
Blessed Sacrament, and this fact relieves our faith 
in the Divine Mysteries of many of its difficulties. 
For His Humanity existed in a new mode after the 
Resurrection, so that it possessed many of the qualities 
of a spirit. Accordingly, when every opening of the 
L^pper Room was tightly closed, ''came Jesus and stood 
in the midst." He had passed through the solid wall, 
and was present among them even before He was vis- 
ible. Then, He willed that His Body should be ex- 
tended so that it would fill space and they would see 
Him ; but He was not a whit more really there in His 
Manhood after He gave It extension, when they could 
see His Wounds and feel His Flesh and Bones, than 
while It remained unextended, occupying no length, or 



256 SAINT JOHN 



breadth or thickness of space. In the same way, His 
spirit-like Humanity is present in the tiniest portion 
of the Blessed Sacrament. 

We learn a great lesson about believing in the Holy 
Communion, from the doubt and the great faith of St. 
Thomas. He demanded and received the opportunity 
of thrusting His Hand into the sacred Wounds. Yet, 
as St. Austin observes, ''he saw and touched Man and 
confessed God Whom he saw not nor touched." His 
eyes beheld the outward and visible Sign of Jesu's 
Manhood, but he believed in the inward, invisible Per- 
son. ''In His example, it is seen that faith is not meas- 
ured by sight.'' 

One blessing we receive only when we gather about 
"God's Board." There alone dear Jesus is to us as a 
Father among His children. We observe a significant 
difference between the word for "little children" which 
He used just after Holy Communion, in the Upper 
Room, and that by which He addressed the Apostles 
on the Lake (xiii: 33 ; z^. 5). Only the former implies 
the relationship of paternity toward His Own. When 
He has imparted to us His Own Flesh and Blood, at 
the Altar, we are His little children, and He is our 
Everlasting Father. v 

<ar6ut0liag aftet tfie ^ztm^ &un6ag jactet (Ka0tct 

©reparationis for i^olp Cominunion anli ^i^anfeissifainc 

The principle of all external preparation for the 
coming of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is that 
we should do our utmost, by flowers and lights and 
vestments, to show our reverence for Him. The spirit 
of the Church in this regard is the same as that which 
moved St. Peter to wrap his fisher's frock around him 



SAINT JOHN 257 



before he appeared in the Divine Presence. Through- 
out the night he had kept it in his locker, for fear it 
should be splashed in the fishing, but now he put it on 
and plunged into the water. In the same way, we 
ought to be much more careful and generous in mak- 
ing the place of the Lord's feet glorious, than in 
adorning our house or ourselves. 

Our interior preparation is even more important. 
As dear Peter no longer desired to walk upon the 
waves to Jesus, but, with mingled penitence, self-sacri- 
fice and love, flung himself into the sea and swam to 
Him, so must the Christian approach Him at the 
Altar, with lowly contrition and devotion. Let our 
souls be very empty, and have a great capacity. ''We 
go to our Communion too often with a thimbleful of 
faith,'' says a devout Bishop, "and we come back with 
a thimbleful of grace." Moreover, we must remember 
that it is for us to make up to our Lord, by our love, 
for the hostility of His enemies, and the coldness of 
the world. 

After our Communion will come our thanksgiving. 
For if our Lord in His High-Priestly prayer thanked 
His Father for giving us to Him, ought not we to 
thank God for giving Him to us ? He needed nothing ; 
we need all things, and find all things in Him. 

iFttaap mttt tje &tcana ^un&ap mat dEaoter 

It is remarkable that our Lord commanded the Apos- 
tles to bring some of the fish which they had caught, 
when in fact He meant to feed them with those of His 
own providing {w, 9-12). He seems to have intended 
to impress upon them in this way the obligation of 
18 



258 SAINT JOHN 



using His gifts. But if He felt it necessary to teach 
them this in regard to a mere material thing, how 
greatly He must wish us to realize that we may not 
receive His precious gift of grace in vain ! (cp. 2 Cor. 
vi : I ) . 

It should be our greatest anxiety, therefore, always 
to communicate profitably. Every opportunity or 
privilege is attended by the danger that by accepting it 
we incur increased responsibility. Saul was the worse 
for kingship, Balaam for the gift of prophecy, Judas 
for Apostleship, Simon Magus for the Holy Ghost. 
But, in these and similar cases, the final catastrophe is 
always due to the fact that, along with the blessing 
from God, the soul has been tolerating a habit of sin. 
As long as we are manfully fighting our vices, we 
ought to receive the Blessed Sacrament the more fre- 
quently, in proportion to our need of spiritual strength. 

But not only must we serve Christ with undivided 
allegiance; we must use the larger measure of grace 
given us for some spiritual enterprise on His behalf. 
How great would be the value of our communions, if 
at each we asked for some special grace, and then 
strove to use it for Him until our next time to receive 
Him ! By this method, we would very soon make a 
considerable profit for our Saviour in our spiritual 
business. 1 

feattttDap after t|)e &f conft ^unliap jac tet CEagfUt 

Wc^z i^umilitp of Cijrist's Scents 

The Church of Christ is sent by Him out upon the 
troubled waters of the world to fish for men. But her 
angling would be as ineffectual as that of the seven 
disciples on the lake during their long night of fail- 
ure, if He did not guide her to cast her net on the right 



SAINT JOHN 259 



side. They found, only a boat's width from where 
they had been unsuccessfully fishing, the greatest haul 
of the season. And the Church, as she obeys the Holy 
Spirit of the Master Fisherman, is learning to let 
down her Gospel net in missions at home and abroad, 
and in the hitherto undisturbed depths of parishes, 
where she encloses multitudes of souls. 

The individual servant of our Risen Master, like the 
Body of the Faithful, depends absolutely upon Him 
for guidance and power. St. Peter was a fisherman, 
by trade and lifelong habit, and was poorly equipped 
for the Apostolate. Yet he found that Christ could 
develop the fisherman into an Apostle, while the 
Apostle could not of himself successfully become a 
fisherman again. Without Jesus Christ we can do 
nothing. 

Our Risen Master is Himself the great example of 
the perfect servant. How like the mother of a family 
He was ! He had cooked the breakfast for His chil- 
dren before dawn; and when they shyly stood back, 
afraid to approach the meal in response to His invita- 
tion, ''Come and dine," He took the bread and fish to 
them, and waited upon them with His own Hands. 
''To serve Him is to reign.'' To labor for His King- 
dom, however obscurely, is to sit with Him upon the 
throne of the universe, for it is to share in that Love 
which makes the world go round. 

W^t ^Sita &unliap jacter (Caster 

®l&e Courage of C|)n)3t')3 deibantis 

Through the miraculous draught of fishes, our Lord 
taught the Apostles the great lesson of courage. Early 
in His Ministry He had enabled them to make a similar 



260 SAINT JOHN 



catch, with the purpose of forewarning them that the 
Church MiHtant would contain unworthy Christians, 
and be subject to disasters, and even divisions (St. 
Luke v: i ff.). But on this occasion the net enclosed 
only good fish, and was not rent, nor were the boats 
sinking. This draught also was exactly numbered, 
and was safely drawn up on the shore to our Lord's 
Feet, whereas the other was an uncounted "multitude'' 
of fish, which were left in the boats. Accordingly, the 
miracle indicated that the Apostles were to confide 
absolutely in the success of their ministry. For the 
most part, those who were taken in the net of Christ's 
Body vvould continue to be His, and would finally 
reach His Presence in safety. 

It is remarkable that, contrary to what was His 
invariable custom during His Ministry, our Lord 
neither invoked a blessing upon the breakfast, nor gave 
thanks for it. Very probably He meant to impress 
upon the Eleven that all dominion in Heaven and earth 
had been given into His Hands at His Resurrection, 
so that they were to ascribe the Food to His Provi- 
dence (St. Matt. xxviii:i8). The Church is now 
under the rule of her Redeemer, and He is wielding 
His unlimited power for the success of every one of 
His servants (i Cor. xv:25fT.). 

The food with which He fed His ''children" was that 
which He had Himself provided. Thus He made them 
understand that He would satisfy the spiritual hunger 
of His Own, in Heaven, most of all with the joys He 
has prepared for those who love Him, and only in a 
subsidiary way by the blessed results of their ministry. 



SAINT JOHN 261 



Hotje tl)e IDajaig of ^erbice 

The three questions which our Lord asked St. Peter 
constitute, as has been well said, the ^'examination 
paper of a disciple'' (vv, 15-18). They leave no ques- 
tion that what God most desires to see developing in 
our souls is His gift of love, and that this most 
dynamic virtue is the basis of our service. 

Even such a saint as dear Peter was still far from 
perfect in Divine Charity, after years spent in the fel- 
lowship of Incarnate God. We see the slowness of 
his development reflected in the gradual way in which 
he came to deserve his glorious title, '* Peter," the 
'*Rock-man." After foretelling that he would some 
day fitly bear this name, our Lord rarely called him by 
it; the three earlier Evangelists assigned it to him 
ordinarily in episodes showing his love ; St. John, 
writing after St. Peter had made the supreme sacri- 
fice, always used it. We ordinary folk, therefore, must 
not despair if we find that we have yet to grow in the- 
fundamental quality of true service. 

The very first application which the ''Prince of the 
Apostles" was to make of his love was to children.. 
"Feed my lambs,'' his Master commanded. Accord- 
ingly, Christians have always considered this one of 
their most important duties. Are we then feeding our 
Lord's little ones? Or are we committing the almost 
universal sins against them of criticizing and praising 
them in their presence, punishing them in anger, and, 
worse than all, failing to ''bring them up in the nur- 
ture and admonition of the Lord"? (Eph. vi: 4.) Let 
us strive to fulfill perfectly the high vocation of 
parents, that our sons may grow up as the dear Plant 



262 SAINT JOHN 



which flourished out of the ground at Easter, and our 
daughters be as the immaculate Cornerstone of the? 
Heavenly Temple (Ps. cxliv:i2). 

^ue0liap attet tSe ^fiftti &un&ap %ii%t (Kagtet 

PielHinij to ©aistoral Direction 

It was a new task our Lord assigned to the fisher- 
man, when He appointed hira to be a shepherd. And 
we may be sure that when He commissioned St. Peter 
in terms of the pastoral office, rather than in those of 
his lifelong trade, it was with an important purpose. 
For souls which have been caught up ''out of the deep'' 
and brought to shore must not be thought of as fish 
safely landed, but as sheep requiring a shepherd. 

''Tend my little sheep," was the Good Shepherd's 
second command to St. Peter {y. i6 literally trans- 
lated). Souls just beginning the spiritual life, with all 
its problems, temptations and troubles before them, 
must have the direction of a wise and good pastor. 
And when we consider that the shepherd of our Lord's 
country knew every one of his charges by name, 
watched over it separately, fed and defended it, and 
bound up its wounds, we know that He expects the 
pastor of souls to give his loving care to their individ- 
ual needs. 

The third and final direction to the Apostle was, 
"Feed my sheep." It is important to observe that the 
Good Shepherd directed His minister to feed, rather 
than tend, these mature members of His Flock. He 
seems to mean that those who have in a measure 
learned the devout life will need rather the grace of 
Absolution than spiritual direction. For the purpose 
of pastoral guidance is to develop and train the spirit- 



SAINT JOHN 263 



ual faculties of souls so that commonly they will grow 
to have less and less need of counsel. May the Divine 
Shepherd hasten the day when the tender pastoral rela- 
tion shall be maintained, in love and wisdom, toward 
lambs, little sheep, and fully grown sheep, throughout 
this part of His Fold. i 

aaitlinestiap after tSe Uftirti feuntiag actet (Eagfter 

HoftE ^im;9 anti ^otiejst Claim? 

Our Saviour's question, ''Simon, son of Jonas, lov- 
est thou Me?" was, as the verb shows, an appeal for 
Divine Charity {agape), — that ''complete, profound, 
eternal'' devotion, which is for God in Himself. But, 
even when He had asked for this a second time, St. 
Peter would only claim the less perfect love (philia), 
consisting in personal attachment to the God-Man 
through devotion to His Manhood. Always afterward, 
moreover, throughout his life, Peter shrank, in self- 
abasement, from saying that he possessed Divine Char- 
ity. He attributed it to his people, but he would never 
credit himself with any other love of God except his 
response to the tenderness of Jesus' Heart (i St. 
Pet. i:8). 

Even this love for the Sacred Humanity, he attrib- 
uted to himself, only on the testimony of his Master. 
''Thou knowest that I love Thee,'' he kept saying. He 
would not trust his own clear consciousness of devoted 
affection for his Saviour. 

In His third question, therefore, Christ yielded to 
him, and asked for the less perfect charity. But this 
especially grieved St. Peter. For, first, the very repe- 
titions made it seem as if Jesus did not know that he 
loved Him ; secondly, he was reminded of his three 
denials ; and, thirdly, the inquiry now was as to his 



264 SAINT JOHN 



really having even the love for Christ which he had 
claimed. But, while he doubted whether the other 
Apostles would ever believe in him again, and although 
he would not trust himself, yet he relied absolutely 
upon his Master's Divine knowledge of his heart iv, 
17). There are, therefore, in the episode, these les- 
sons : we must strive to return the love of the Blessed 
Trinity; we must be very diffident about our having 
achieved perfect charity, and we must confide abso- 
lutely in the kindness of Jesus' judgment of us. 

<i;5ut0lia? after t6e ^fitta ^uniia? after (Kaeter 

tZTeistis of flDur Spirituality 

It is the unexpected which tests our whole previous 
spiritual progress. Thus Jesus suddenly appeared to 
Blessed Magdalen as a gardener, and her exact degree 
of development in knowledge of Him was immediately 
laid bare. "In another form," He joined the two 
going to Emmaus ; like a spirit. He penetrated into the 
midst of the Apostles, once and again; and as a 
stranger He ''showed Himself" to the Seven on the 
Lake. And the result of His coming unexpectedly 
upon these souls was that the spiritual progress of 
Cleopas and his fellow, and of Thomas, and of Peter, 
was at once revealed. Now, He appears to us under 
the disguise of sudden happenings, and our reaction 
upon these is usually a good, and a humbling, test of 
our development thus far. 

For example, we are likely to discover, at such mo- 
ments, how little we really trust in the ever-present 
Providence of God. We are like the Apostles in their 
slowness to credit the Resurrection. They had several 
times seen Christ exercise sovereign power over death ; 



SAINT JOHN 265 



and as Jews they knew that He would rise again at 
the last Day. It was not the past or future working of 
God, therefore, but the present, which they doubted; 
and so it is with us. 

A very few experiments, then, will convince us that 
we are progressing, if at all, by steps almost invisibly 
small. Yet, if we are trying earnestly, we must not 
be discouraged. God ordinarily proceeds slowly in 
transforming His creatures. An observer in a South- 
ern garden will be impressed by the series of infinites- 
imal gradations between a moth and a humming-bird. 
Perhaps this indicates the Creator's method with our 
souls. At least, He is very patient with us in His great 
charity as we painfully struggle through one conver- 
sion after another, putting off the "old man'' and put- 
ting on the New. 1 

jFti&ap after tiie Wm^ feunbap %iitx Cagfter 

i)ur 3nbi}5ible (^eati 

There are many indications that the purpose of our 
Risen Lord's appearance on the Lake shore was to 
reveal truths of unique importance. For, first, the 
draught of fishes is the only recorded miracle wrought 
by Him after the Resurrection. Again, it was one of 
the two "Signs" which were intended primarily for the 
instruction of the Apostles alone (cp. St. Matt, xvii: 
24-27). Finally, it was really doubled by the super- 
natural provision of fish and bread, and for this reason 
it stands quite alone in the Bible. Now, the principal 
lesson thus impressively introduced was the perpetual 
Providence of Jesus, our unseen Head. 

For He was educating the Apostles to believe in His 
invisible Presence and power. Accordingly, He did 
not now show them His Wounds, so that they felt the 



266 SAINT JOHN 



lack of that certainty based upon sight which had 
hitherto been granted them {y. 13). They, like us, 
must know Him now by the signs of His working with 
the Church. 

May He teach us, as He instructed the Eleven, to 
realize His continual nearness, that we may have fel- 
lowship with Him as truly as the Apostles did. 

*' We may not climb the heavenly steeps, 
To bring the Lord Christ down ; 
In vain we search the lowest deeps, 
For him no depths can drown. 

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet 

A present help is he ; 
And faith has still its Olivet, 

And love its Galilee." 



&atartiag Slf tet tfie %\\t^ ^undap iaftet (IEa0tet 

E|)e €on!3?cration of ©ntljuisiajsm 

Our Lord said to St. Peter, ''When thou wast young, 
thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou 
wouldest.'' The Apostle had, only a little before, 
''walked" to Him out of the surf, with his fisher's 
frock "girded" about him, after his impulsive dash 
through the waves. Enthusiasm for his Master had 
made him as free as a boy in undertaking the adven- 
ture. But mingled with the youthful courage and love 
of his act, was his characteristic fault, self-assertion. 
He had 'walked whither he would. ^ 

Our Lord loved his fervor, wherefore He planned 
to purify and consecrate it. As has been rightly said, 
"Thi^ ardor was not useless ; it was the genuine heat 
which, when plunged into the chilling disappointments 
of life, would make veritable steel of Peter's resolution." 



SAINT JOHN 267 



Martyrdom should be the glorious goal of the ardent 
Apostle's development. ''When thou shalt be old/' the 
Divine Prophet foretold to him, ''thou shalt stretch 
forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry 
thee whither thou wouldest not/' What though flesh 
and blood would shrink from the cross ! He would, 
nevertheless, stretch out his arms to embrace it, in 
that day when he would give up, finally, the freedom 
of youth and fervor for willing slavery to the Slave of 
the Universe. Enthusiasm, therefore, in the young, or 
those of fervent temperament, is not something to be 
deprecated. It is one of the raw materials out of which 
Jesus makes steadfast, loving servants. 

W^t JFottttS feun&ap Sifter (Easftet 

S|)e I^otoer of ti^e Kejsurrection 

It had not lain in dear Peter's own strength to fol- 
low Christ. He had protested, once and again, that 
he would accompany his Master to prison and death, 
and then had gone on to deny Him thrice. "Thou 
canst not follow Me now," Incarnate Truth had 
warned him, before Easter ; but afterward, the Divine 
Command was, "Follow Me!" Only in the power of 
the Resurrection would he be able to drink of his 
Lord's cup. 

With the new life from the Risen Christ in his soul, 
his loyalty was in glorious contrast to his unfaithful- 
ness before. Then, he had cringed before the ridicule 
of a housemaid, and a few domestic servants. Now, 
he stood forth boldly before the Sanhedrin, proud to 
have them take knowledge that he had been with Jesus 
(Acts iv: 13). 

But more than this should he accomplish through the 



268 SAINT JOHN 



grace of the Resurrection. As Christ by His Cross 
had glorified His Father, so would Peter glorify God 
by his death (xvii: i ; xxi: 19). Now the sheep could 
follow his Purchaser. 'Teter could lay down his life 
for Christ, since Christ had laid down His Life for 
Peter.'' With that same mighty help at hand for every 
one of us, dare we be pusillanimous ? Is there one who 
cannot conquer his besetting sin, and live true to his 
vocation, through Christ the Giver of power (cp. Phil. 
iv:i3)? ^ 

a^pndap aftec tfie iFouttS ^unftag mitt (Ka0Ut 

%>U ©eter DeHtcatejs i^ija pernor? to Cljrat 

St. Peter was remarkable, in later years, for the 
fidelity with which he recollected episodes of his fel- 
lowship with our Lord and applied the teaching from 
them to practical matters in his own life. For exam- 
ple, he never forgot the two angels which the holy 
women had seen at the head and foot of the place 
where the Sacred Body had lain, contemplating the 
mystery of the Resurrection and marvelling. They 
desired, he wrote long afterward, to look into the suf- 
ferings of Christ and the glory that had followed (i 
St. Pet. i: II f.). His Epistle was written from prison: 
to Christians on the brink of the terrible Neronic per- 
secution. What unspeakable comfort it must have 
been, both to the Apostle and those he addressed, that 
they would have a privilege denied even to the Holy 
Angels, of sharing both the Passion of Christ and His 
Easter glory ! 

Again, in his exhortation to the bishops of Asia 
Minor, he repeats almost the very words of Christ to 
him at the Lakeshore (i St. Pet. v:iflF.). He had 
always borne in mind those Divine Commands to shep- - 



SAINT JOHN 269 



herd his Lord's lambs and sheep, and now he urges 
them upon his fellow ''elders/' saying, ''Tend the Flock 
of God/' 

Let us take St. Peter for our preceptor in this con- 
secration of the memory. For it is probable that we 
shall be judged according to what we have stored in 
our minds. Some day these "books" will be opened 
(Rev. XX : 12). We must fill them now with profitable 
thoughts and holy recollections. 



tCueiStiap after tfie jFouttfi ^untiap Mitt Ca0ter 

imitation of ^[esud 

It is St. John, above all the other sacred writers, who 
shows us our obligation and privilege of being sons of 
God like Jesus. He himself constantly followed the 
model of Christ's example, even in details. Thus, his 
word for "children" (like the Italian ''carissimi'')^ in 
affectionate, fatherly addresses to his people, is the 
same as that which his Risen Master had used (v, 5 ; 
cp. I St. John ii:i8). The Apostle of Love alone 
caught that beautiful note from the Voice of the Easter 
Christ. 

Writing from the stone-quarries of Patmos, again, 
he reveals the way he was finding in his sufferings an 
opportunity to share "in the Kingdom and patience of 
Jesus Christ" (Rev. i: 9). None but he had witnessed 
the bearing of our Lord before the high priests and 
Pilate at once Divinely royal and lamb-like in meek- 
ness. In His gift was the Kingdom of God ; and thus 
His Beloved Disciple learned for all time that the 
Kingdom, and patience by which it may be won, go 
hand in hand. 



270 SAJNT JOHN 



The great Easter lesson that the Head of the Church 
is always in her midst had sunk deep into St. John's 
heart. Accordingly, he markedly prefers the words 
for Christ's ''coming/' which mean, the one, ''His 
Presence," and the other, the "Revelation" of His 
nearness. To our saintly Guide the great Model of 
God's sons is always present with the Church, and will 
simply be manifested visibly at His Second Advent. 
He would have us live so that our every action will 
bear the inspection of Emmanuel, God with us. 

aaieUnesilipg after tSe jFouttS &unliap 
after Cagfter 

3feiBuj3 ISieen, anU 60ental Dijscipline 

Dr. Pusey saw, in the Upper Room locked and 
barred against the Jews, a symbol of a soul closed at 
the openings of the senses to all its enemies. Christ 
will enter such a spirit, and manifest His Risen Life 
to it. 

Accordingly, the first step toward mental discipline 
is to shut out from our life the din and confusion of 
what Matthew Arnold calls "the howling senses." But 
this spiritual privacy only makes it possible for us to 
know Jesus Risen, and He alone establishes intellectual 
order within us. For He brings light, and love, and 
life, and these are the very conditions of thought con- 
trol. How immediately, after a long night of sadness, 
our mind was quieted at break of day ! So the Christ 
of Easter has shed His Radiance on our life and death. 
Love, even of a human person, and far more when 
directed to Christ, guides and purifies our mind. Just 
a fresh breath of life lifts us up from the dullness of 



SAINT JOHN 271 



desolation or despair; but Jesus gives life in its fulness 
and gives it more abundantly. 

For others' sake, too, let us conserve our intel- 
lectual life for the Risen Master. Maeterlinck says, 
'Though you assume the face of a saint, a hero, or a 
martyr, the eye of the passing child will not greet you 
with the same unapproachable smile, if there lurk with- 
in you an evil thought." On all accounts, therefore, 
we must love the Lord, our God, with all our mind, 

<?ISur0tiap 9MXtt tSe f outtf) feunHap 9kiXtt (Cagftet 

iSt* Ifo|)n DfbotetJ to ^rutJ) 

So often, and so adoringly, does St. John speak of 
Divine Light, that some have attributed to him an even 
greater devotion to this attribute of God than to His 
Love. Especially for the revelation of truth in and 
through Christ, he had a jealous care; and to this 
quality we owe his giving us our most complete de- 
scription of Christ's Eastertide appearances, both in 
Jerusalem and in Galilee. 

His reverence for the Word of God led him also, it 
seems, to add what is now the last chapter to his Gos- 
pel. A tradition had grown up, that he had been sin- 
gled out by Christ for a miraculous immunity from 
death, forever. This was much to his honor, but it 
was false, and therefore, happily, he was moved to 
write an appendix in order to disprove it. 

But perhaps there is no proof of his regard for 
Divine Truth so convincing as the special name he 
shared with his brother. For Boanerges has come to 
mean to us ^'Thunderers of Charity,'' but, as our Lord 
applied it, it more probably signified "Echoes of the 
Word of God," since thunder was thought of as re- 



272 SAINT JOHN 



verberations of the Divine Voice. At no time in her 
history has the Church needed this spirit of St. John 
more than now, when the verities of religion are so 
lightly regarded. He must teach us to speak the truth 
in love. 



iFtt&ap after tfie jFouttfi &untiap jaftet (Easur 

%X 3fof)n as filter Cl)rtj3tui5 

It is of more than symbolic significance that, as Jesus 
was Alpha and Omega, John was the first and last of 
His Apostles. There was a likeness to the Saviour in 
the soul of the Beloved Disciple, which drew him to 
Christ at the very beginning, and made it appropriate 
for him to remain on earth after all the others, to be a 
living, visible, bond of love between the Lord in 
Heaven and His persecuted Church in the world. 

From his close association with his Master, more- 
over, his very vocabulary and modes of expression be- 
came strikingly similar to those of Jesus. ''It is some- 
times even objected to this Gospel,'' writes a learned 
modern commentator, "that you cannot distinguish be- 
tween the sayings of the Evangelist and the sayings 
of his Master. Is there any other writer who would 
be in the smallest danger of having his words con- 
founded with Christ's ? Is not this the strongest proof 
that John was in perfect sympathy with Jesus T 

He himself suggests that it was because of his inti- 
mate fellowship with our Lord that he ventured to 
follow also, when St. Peter was the one directed to 
follow Qirist {w. 19 f.). He hoped that a death Hke 
his Master's would be appointed for him, too, and 
since it seemed that the sign of willingness to give his 



SAINT JOHN 273 



life was to fall in behind his Captain, he immediately 
did so. What perfection it will mean in us, when we 
think and speak under the influence of Jesus, and seek 
to imitate Him both in our life and death ! 



It is not only useful, but essential, that there should 
be different dispositions among Christ's disciples. It 
was quite right that there should be one who would 
leap into the sea and swim to his Master, and others 
who would remain in the boat and secure the fish. And 
the Church is far richer because some of her children 
are, like St. John, disposed to a life of thought and 
devotion, while others, with St. Peter, turn naturally 
to intense activity. 

The two Apostles are frequently contrasted in Holy 
Writ, but nowhere more strikingly than at their first 
trial before the Sanhedrin (Acts iv: 5-12). St. Peter 
argued vigorously and boldly in their defense, while 
St. John remained perfectly quiet. Many of the Coun- 
cil had been his friends, but they now had come to the 
parting of the ways. For the first time the issue be- 
tween his Jewish past and his Jewish world, and fidel- 
ity to Jesus, was fully and plainly presented to him. 
Silently he met it, and silently went out to give his 
decision life-long, nay, eternal, effect. 

''St. Peter's was the martyrdom of death, St. John's 
was the martyrdom of life," says Bp. Wordsworth. 
Most of us will have the fate of the Beloved Disciple, 
and we owe our Lord special gratitude that along with 

19 



274 SAINT JOHN 



an Apostle who has shared His Cross, He has given 
us one in whom is reflected the Passion of His Life. 



€|^ri}3t'j3 Eejsurrection aissuring 5Dur^ 

It was a Divine necessity that Incarnate God should 
rise from the dead (xx : 9). He could not be holden bj 
the grave ; His Human Soul was full of powerful life 
which was no sooner imparted to His Body on Easter 
morning than it inevitably burst the bonds of death. 
Moreover, from His Humanity this same irresistible 
energy is communicated to ours, and shall at His Com- 
ing free us forever from the grip of that enemy of 
His, whom at last He is to trample under His Feet 
( I Cor. XV : 24 ff . ) . 

We need fulfill only one essential condition, and 
Christ will make over His Easter triumph to us : We 
must render to Him in His Church the obedience of 
love. ''Let those that love Him," cried the sacred his- 
torian, "be as the Sun when He goeth forth in His 
might" ; that is, ''splendid, invincible, vanquishing, an- 
nihilating the darkness of the night [and] the mists of 
dawn" (Jud. v : 31). Let us but permit Divine Charity 
to have its way with us, and an Easter shall dawn, 
when we shall go forth out of our graves in glory like 
the radiance of the rising Dayspring. 

Because of this sure hope, the Resurrection of Christ 
has absolutely changed the face of death to Christian 
mourners. For the conception of it as simply the sleep 
of the body, until its awakening in the morning of 
Eternal Day, originated in the Gospels (xi: 11). The 
first time it appears, in the whole history of our race, 



SAIN. ,OHN 27S 



is in connection with the martyrdom of St. Stephen 
(Acts vii:6o). Indeeo, the very word ''cemetery" 
originally meant "an inn," or ''rest-house/' and was 
afterwards used for the burial-place of the Christian 
martyrs. Thus, since the first Easter, the Church has 
understood that s^ie lays her holy dead in that dormi- 
tory of nature w/iich Jesus loved well, until the Day 
breaks, and they arise in the glory and beauty of im- 
mortal health. ^ 

flosation SI^Dn&ap 

a i&olp Deatl) 

Our Saviour has revealed that we can glorify God 
by our death {v. 19). We must, therefore, gird our- 
selves by regular prayer for our last battle with Satan, 
that we may surely win it, to the honor of "our great 
God and Saviour." "I was ever a fighter," once cried 
a brave soul, "one fight more, the last and best." 

It is true, we naturally shrink from arming to that 
mortal strife. But lack of preparation does not post- 
pone it. And to those who have faithfully borne the 
yoke of Jesus, it is but one last obedience to yield up 
our body into His Hands. The gladiators met Caesar 
with the shout, "We who are about to die, salute 
thee !" Cannot we be as brave and loyal warriors of 
the King of Love? 

Often, and rightly, we are warned that Satan will 
desire to wreak upon us his utmost malice, in our last 
hour. But there is another truth for us to bear in 
mind for our encouragement. The Good Shepherd 
will also be at our bedside, and He has promised that 
none shall pluck out of His Hand the sheep which has 
heard His Voice and followed Him (x : 27 f.). There- 



276 SAINT JOHN 



fore, we must look forward to our death with holy fear 
and constant prayer, yet with a firm confidence in Hira 
Who shall give us the victory. 

ILofaing X\)Z appearing €l)n}3t 

If we were asked what is the ordinary feeling of 
Christians about the Second Advent of our Lord, 
would we not be obliged to confess that it is fear? 
Yet surely this seems a mean-spirited and ungrateful 
attitude toward Jesus Christ. There should be at least 
some of the Church's children who can say, with a 
great and tender longing, ''Even so, come. Lord 
Jesus !" Unless we are willing that He should feel 
unwelcome in the world He has redeemed, we must 
strive to increase the small group of those who ''love 
His appearing." 

There is a love "which casteth out fear,'' and to this 
every Christian must aspire. An old writer teaches us 
that there are in all four steps upward to it : First, in 
the unconverted, there is neither fear nor love. Rising 
above this, the soul conceives fear without love. 
Touched by Divine Charity, it mounts again, to a state 
of both fear and love. And, finally, it attains to have 
love without fear. Most of us are halting at the final 
step. Let us besiege the Heart of Jesus for the gift 
of perfect charity. 

His Own are not to shrink from Him at His com- 
ing. The sign of the Son of Man shall appear in the 
sky, striking terror to the hearts of His enemies. But 
we shall lift up our heads at the sight,, in unspeakable 
thankfulness and joy, for it will mean that our redemp- 
tion draweth nigh. 



SAINT JOHN 111 



St. John's last word to us in his Gospel is that the 
sacred record contains only a tiny portion of the teach- 
ing and miracles of Christ. A complete narrative even 
of His human Life would be practically infinite. But 
if His limited revelation of Himself during His Min- 
istry would fill more books than the world could con- 
tain, how endless must be the perfections of His God- 
head ! Even eternity itself will be far too brief for us 
to see all the ineffable beauties of His Wisdom and 
Love. 

We ought often to encourage ourselves by the hope 
of immortality. If there were no greater blessing in 
store for us than once to have our Saviour take us in 
His dear Arms and give us the Kiss of Peace, it would 
be worth a life-time of suffering and strife. But we 
are to sit with Him in His Throne, to enter into His 
joys, and to spend eternity united to Him in the bond 
of perfect love. 

Across the trackless ocean of the future there is a 
course marked out for us, by the Footsteps of Him 
Whose way is in the sea. Let our hearts only be set 
upon gaining the Harbor of His Heart, and all things, 
whether calms or storms, will work together for good 
to us. 

" One ship drives east, and another west, 
With the self-same winds that blow ; 
'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales, 
That tells us the way they go. 

" Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate, 

As we journey along through Hfe ; 
'Tis the set of a soul, that decides its goal, 
And not the calm or the strife." 



